Neon Genesis Evangelion: Remastered
by Death 12
Summary: There are plenty of NGE Ramma ½ crossovers where Shinji knows or learns martial arts heres one where he learns Jujitsu. Not a Ranma 12 crossover. Chpt 13 edited for consistency, chpt 7 added. Story has officially died.
1. Chapter 1

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Remastered

By Death 12

The young man groaned as he slammed the handset back onto the payphone's cradle, its cheap and cheerful appearance not helping his mood.

"_All normal lines are down due to the state of emergency!_" he repeated in a high pitched voice, rolling his eyes before shifting the bag so that it hung from the opposite shoulder; suddenly glad he'd only brought a couple of day's worth of clothes with him. Considering the so called 'special state of emergency' that'd left him stuck in the middle of a city he'd never visited before and alone to boot.

He let out a long sigh as he took another look at the photo he'd received not a week earlier, enclosed with a letter from his father.

He snuck a glance at his watch before sighing again and leaning against the building behind him.

"Where the hell is she? Her letter said to meet her here half an hour ago, so where the hell is she?" his rant was cut off as a sudden gust nearly bowelled him over, his trained reflexes having been the only thing to save him from meeting the asphalt in a reasonably painful manner. Pavements weren't designed with cushioned landings in mind.

Taking a quick glance up, he watched a pair of guided missiles arc around to their target, exploding violently against its dark hide.

"What the Fuck?" the rest of the question was cut off as he turned and fled, his body finding a much better use for the breath as he put as much distance between him and the swiftly dropping VTOL wreckage.

The street behind him disappeared in a cloud of dust, shrapnel and glass as the aircraft's unspent ammunition detonated on impact.

(Page Break)

The tires screeched as she began to swerve away from the body that'd suddenly appeared in the middle of the road, slamming the brakes on the young woman bolted out of the car as she rushed towards the young man laying dazed in the road.

"Damn that hurt…" he groaned as he sat up, before tenderly rubbing his arms, before looking up and coming face to face with a rather distraught purple blur.

"Oh my god! Are you okay? I'm so sorry!" she started, her mouth talking a mile a minute as she looked him over, nearly frantic.

"I'll be fine once everything focuses properly again, are you Misato Katsuragi?" he asked, slowly getting to his feet, somehow managing to forget the large green and white creature and his first near-death experience less than a few moments ago.

"Shinji Ikari?" she paused to watch him nod before gesturing to the now dinted car. "I'm here to pick you up."

(Page Break)

"Impossible! That was a direct hit! It had to be!" a large man in a green officers suit shouted, slamming a fist against the table before him, scowling as the man beside him lent back, crossing his arms.

"Artillery and guided missiles have no effect; it appears we have no choice. Order the engaging units to pull back and prepare to strike with an N2 mine; nothing can stand up to that amount of firepower!"

(Page Break)

Shinji pressed back in his seat as his escort leaned over him with a pair of binoculars, apparently watching something intently in the direction of the city's outskirts.

"Shit! Get down!" she cried, pulling his head down into her lap as she ducked over him.

Whilst the car didn't roll when the resulting shockwave hit it, the sheer force of the shockwave managed to crack both windscreens and the passenger side windows, several small pebbles hit the car, one flying through the open window before smashing its way through the opposite window, the shockwave easily tearing a hole through the laminated glass.

They sat still for a moment after the shockwave passed, before Shinji shifted slightly, worry overtaking his face as his hand came away from Misato's back bloody.

The woman in question gave him a small smile when she noticed his worried look, sitting up slowly before explaining.

"Something just nicked me that's all, I'm fine." She looked around the car before forcing her door open. "Wish I could say the same for my car though, damn it! How'm I gonna pay for all this? Shit!"

Shinji tried his own door before giving it a swift kick to free it, startling Misato as she wandered around the car trying not to cry at the thought of how much the repairs would cost.

Stepping out he let out a low whistle as he surveyed the damage, the entire side had been dinted with pebbles; a few of the larger ones had managed to make their way through, he cringed as he thought of the state the engine would be in.

"You work for my father and the U.N. right? Couldn't you call it business expenses or something?" she looked thoughtful for a minute before nodding, walking around to the bonnet to take a look at the damage underneath.

He blinked as he noticed a small pool forming beneath the car, he couldn't tell if it was oil, petrol or brake fluid, but he sure as hell didn't want to find out the hard way.

"Miss Katsuragi? Wouldn't it be easier to just find another car nearby? Because it looks like something hit the petrol tank." He cringed at the cry she let out when she checked, before noticing what looked to be an abandoned car nearby, running over he tried the door before picking up a fist sized rock and launching it at the window, idly noting the way it bounced off before adjusting his aim slightly and repeating the process.

"Hey there's one we can use over here!" with that he opened the door and quickly swept the shattered glass onto the floor before setting about starting it.

She looked up as a nearby car suddenly started, pulling to a stop next to her; she gave the boy driving an odd look before opening the door and pushing him across into the passenger seat.

"Steal a lot of cars do you?"

(Page Break)

"High energy reaction detected from within target zone!"

"Visuals restored!"

With that the main screen shifted from static to a clear view of a large green and white creature, the land around it having turned into what looked like molten glass, whilst the creature itself appeared to have been singed and in some places melted, the healthy rise and fall of what appeared to be _gills_ announced that it was definitely still alive, and more than likely, quite pissed off.

"Commander Ikari, we are giving you command of this operation, defeat that _creature_ through whatever means necessary!" one of the U.N. officials said, before the table disappeared into the floor, the officials with it.

"So, the U.N. has given you command, what are you going to do?" a tall man asked, turning to face his one-time student, before running a hand through his grey hair.

The man in question pressed a button on his desk, waiting for the call to be answered.

"Prepare to activate Unit 01, I will arrive shortly to oversee operations." With that he pressed the button again, before turning to the man next to him. "A back-up pilot will arrive shortly, should he prove useless or require coercion, prepare to head to the infirmary and wake up Rei."

"Can she even pilot in her condition?"

"I doubt it will come to that." With that said the shorter man turned around and left the room.

(Page Break)

The purple haired woman sat next to him sighed before leaning back in the seat; she sat up suddenly as she reached around in her pockets for something, before she pulled out a PDA, with what looked to be a card reader built into one side.

"You got a temporary security pass card with the letter didn't you? Here, insert it into that and read it, it's the NERV information pack."

Shinji did as he was told only to frown as nothing happened; he reinserted the card again only to groan as he noticed a tiny crack running from corner to corner across the screen.

"Miss Katsuragi? I think its broken." He passed her the device as she held out her hand, only to do exactly as he had done, before shoving it back into one of her pockets and shifting so she was looking at him.

"Stop calling me Miss Katsuragi, it makes me sound old, I'm not old am I?" Shinji looked at her before quickly shaking his head, he didn't want to piss her off any more than she already was, especially considering her car was now abandoned _and_ trashed, then if you took into account how much of a bastard his father was…well, lets just say he didn't want to be on the receiving end of that anger, after all, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

"So, anything on that I need to know or was it just a general welcome?" he asked tentatively, hoping like hell she hadn't written it.

"Nothing really, just the fact we're a U.N. organisation and your father is the commander, but you knew that already right?" He nodded before sighing.

"Any idea what he wants me for? I know it isn't for a nice happy reunion, especially after the bastard abandoned me."

"Wait? He abandoned you? How old were you? Eight, nine?" she asked, her eyes wide with shock at his sudden revelation.

"Six, I was six. He isn't really much of a father is he?" he laughed bitterly before shaking his head. "Bastard better have a damn good reason for calling me here…" he trailed off before turning to look at Misato, taking in her surprised look before laughing again. "What? You thought I might have expected a nice and fuzzy reunion? He only gets in touch if he wants something. Like last time."

Misato was silent for a few moments as she digested that.

"Well, we've stopped, we'd better get going." She tried to open the door and blinked when she caught her hand on something sharp, cursing under her breath for a moment as Shinji smirked at her. "What? It's not my damn fault I forgot there was glass there!"

She thrust the door open and stepped out, slamming the door shut behind her and started to stalk off towards the nearby lifts; a quiet indignant grumble made itself known as her recently acquired charge scrambled after her.

It was at this point where Shinji noticed, with mild amusement, that he was at least a few inches taller than her.

Misato stopped as she heard a quiet chuckle behind her, "What?"

"Nothing, nothing at all…" he replied with a small smile, waving it off before following her as she set off again at a brisk pace.

(Page Break)

The duo looked at the door to the elevator as it opened with a light '_ding_' Shinji standing quietly to one side as the newcomer began to talk to his escort like they were old friends.

"So Misato, is that him?" The woman in question nodded as she replied.

"Yeah, he's the one, the 'Third Child' according to the Marduk report at least."

Shinji tuned out the rest of the conversation, instead taking the time to admire the newcomer's swimsuit clad form, raising an eyebrow as he noticed the way it clung to her form beneath her stark white lab coat, he shifted as he felt her look at him before she ran a hand through her hair, apparently exasperated at the older woman.

Misato lent forwards as an announcement blared over the tannoy system, before following her blond friend as she left the lift, leading them towards a door marked 'Eva Chamber 01'.

Shinji shook his head as they stopped in the middle of what looked to be a viewing platform before a giant purple head.

"So this is what the bastard has been working on? What's it got to do with me?" he asked as he looked it over, before turning to look at the large viewing window behind it at it suddenly lit up.

"You will pilot it."

"Jesus Christ what is this? A fucking anime?"

"Shinji please, at least try and pilot it, if you don't, that _thing_ up there will kill everyone, please…" the purple haired woman to his right pleaded, laying her hands on his arm gently.

"What about the other two?" he snapped rounding on her, his eyes narrowing into a glare. "You said I was the _Third_ child right? So what about the other two?"

"The second child is in Germany and the first is currently comatose in hospital from the original activation test." The cold reply came from behind him; the blond doctor spun him around by the shoulder, staring him in the eye. "I don't like this either, but that's life! Now stop whining and get in the damn thing!"

"Fine, anything I need to know before I get in that thing?" he replied, not breaking eye contact with the blond haired scientist.

"We fill the cockpit with a fluid called LCL, so if you've got anything you want to keep I suggest you leave it out here with either of us." Once she'd said that the young man began to empty his pockets before stripping off his shirt, his hands automatically going to the back of his neck to undo the clasp of his silver chain.

He carefully laid it in the woman's hand before giving her a stern look. "Make sure you don't lose it." Were his last words before he turned and jogged around the back of the robot where several techs were gesturing him over.

(Page Break)

Shinji tried to settle his nerves as the entry plug began to fill with LCL, even though they'd told him he'd be able to breath it he still felt as though he was going to drown, not that he was surprised, considering whilst he could swim, he hadn't since he'd nearly drowned six years ago. Shuddering he squashed the memory before it could take root in his mind, before glancing at the view screen that'd suddenly appeared before him.

"Sync ratio is 7.4" a voice reported over the radio, he grimaced as he tried to force the strange presence he felt in the back of his mind out, visibly concentrating with the effort.

"Shinji, open your mind to the Eva, otherwise you won't be able to fight." The blond scientist ordered, her face appearing to the left of his head, just out of his main vision.

His head whipped around, about to snap a reply only to have a strange gargling noise emit from his throat.

"_Shinji-kun? Just try and relax, I know it's hard, but try not to fight it, just relax okay?"_ a soft voice reached his ears, whilst he didn't recognise it he stopped trying to push out the presence, closing his eyes he let out a long breath, before opening his eyes again, focusing on the presence and tried to bring it to the forefront of his mind, hoping that would help him pilot the machine.

"Sync ratio is climbing, 20, 25, 30, still climbing! 40, 45, stabilized at 53.7" one of the techs reported, her gentle voice nagging at the back of his mind.

"It's like the kid was born to pilot Eva!" one of the other techs shouted, his deeper voice clearly in awe of the teenager.

"Eva unit 01 Launch!"

(Page Break)

Shinji let out a grunt as he felt himself being forced into the seat by the sudden g-force from the launch.

He opened his eyes as he felt the unit suddenly stop, and felt it finally come free of the last of its restraints.

(Page Break)

Misato frowned as she watched the purple Eva grab the green hand aimed for its head and drop into a backwards roll easily, launching the enemy as it released its hand as it reached the apex of the roll.

"What the hell is he doing?" the blond doctor shouted, turning to the three techs before her for an explanation.

"It's called a Tawara Gaeshi Sempai; I think that's what it's called at least, anyway, I know it's a martial arts move, I learned it when I was learning Jujitsu in Okinawa a few years ago." The only female of the trio turn around to address her, her shoulder length black hair left loose, idly she tucked a stray strand behind her ear nervously.

"In Japanese Maya." The older woman stated, having been completely lost by her pupil.

"Basically it's a throw Sempai." She answered, before quickly returning to her duties, watching over the various monitors.

"Four minutes thirty seconds of operational times remaining! That throw just shattered the power cable and its port!" one of the other two techs shouted, already taking steps to eject what remained of the cable and cut the power feed as Misato shouted the order.

(Page Break)

Shinji shook his head as he righted the purple behemoth, curiously watching as his opponent duplicated the move, stilling for a moment before lunging forwards and grabbing the Eva's shoulders and attempted to grapple with it.

Shinji quickly countered the move by sliding both forearms against the Angel's own, suddenly forcing them outwards just below the elbow, breaking the hold and disrupting the Angel's balance.

He capitalised on the opening, dropping into a leg sweep and pouncing on the downed Angel, pounding away with clenched fists against the Angel's thick green hide.

He failed to notice the rapid building up of light in the Angel's eye fire out at him however; shifting him enough for the Angel to free an arm and latch a hand onto his head, driving one of its spikes into the Eva's head repeatedly, managing to crack the eye guard it hit before Shinji snapped its elbow in the opposite direction.

Bringing up its other hand the creature fired the spike on that arm into the Eva's chest, sending it flying backwards to crash into a nearby building.

"Eva has gone silent!" Misato nearly screamed as one of the techs shouted that, but instead began to shout orders for retrieving the now inactive machine.

"What the? Eva's reactivating!"

"No telemetry being received from the Eva, I've got no idea if the Pilot is still in control!"

They could only watch as the Eva charged at the being labelled as 'The third Angel'.

"That has to be the pilot! The Eva wouldn't activate the prog knife on its own!" Maya shouted as she watched with a certain sense of horror as the Eva began to hack its way through its opponent, several of the blows hitting the glowing red orb in the centre of its chest, managing to crack its flawless surface.

"Get me an open channel to the pilot, I don't care how you do it, just do it now!" Misato barked, startling everyone in the room into action.

(Page Break)

The angel somehow managed to wrap its arm's around the Eva and still its violent slashes, before it wrapped the rest of its body around the purple giant, its damaged core suddenly glowing white hot before exploding, evaporating the tarmac beneath them, leaving the Eva sat in the base of a crater.

Inside the entry plug Shinji let out a breath before slumping forwards, his body simply too exhausted to go on any longer.

(Page Break)

"Hey Sleepyhead, nice to see you're awake."

Shinji groaned as he began to focus properly, looking around for the owner of the voice, only to find her hugging him loosely. "So, sleep well? We found you out cold in the entry plug."

"Huh? Maya-san?" he asked wearily, still half asleep as he returned the gesture.

"Yeah, it's me, and here you thought you'd gotten rid of me when I got a job here!" she giggled lightly before hugging him again; still trying to get over the fact he was in one piece.

"It's nice to see you again Maya-san." He greeted, offering her a tired smile before yawning, throwing his feet over the side of the bed before standing up and stretching.

"So, I'm moving in city I take it? You know if they've got a place picked out for me yet?"

He watched as she nodded dejectedly, apparently disappointed with their choice.

"I'm not even sure why the building it's in hasn't been condemned, I'm trying to get Sempai and Colonel Katsuragi to get it changed for you, but I think the Commander just doesn't care…" she sighed before patting the bed next to her, waiting for him to sit down.

"What's wrong Maya-san?" Shinji asked as he plopped down next to her, leaning forwards to try and look her in the eye. "Maya-san?"

"Nothing, just wondering why it has to be you piloting it, you've been through so much already…" she was cut off as he wrapped an arm around her shoulder, giving her a reassuring squeeze.

"It doesn't matter, I'll pilot as long as I have to, because I can; after all, I can't let yesterday's excitement go to waste can I?" She looked up at him as he spoke; only just noticing the purple bruises along his shoulders and arms.

"What the hell happened to you?" she hissed as she looked him over, noting several more down his back.

"That would be my fault." The duo turned to look at the newcomer, Shinji's purple haired escort from the day previous. "I kinda ran him over when I went to pick him up yesterday…" she lowered her eyes to the floor as she continued. "He just appeared out of nowhere…well, at least he's alright, that's what matters."

Shinji grimaced as he noticed Maya's glare, glad he wasn't on the other end of it, whilst Maya was usually fairly quiet and reserved when not amongst close friends, she took exception to those who hurt people close to her, and she counted Shinji amongst those lucky few.

She visibly calmed as Shinji slid his arm around her shoulders again, before hugging him once again, shifting closer to him as she did so.

"Anyway Maya, I came down here to tell you that they've outright refused to get Shinji a better apartment, but they did say he could move in with either myself or Rits, I asked why he couldn't stay with you, but they said you were too close to his age."

"What the hell? Do they think I'm gonna try an take advantage of him or something?" she nearly screamed at the purple haired captain, advancing towards her.

"I wouldn't mind."

Both women stared at him, open mouthed.

"What? Did I say that out loud?"

They nodded.

"…Shit…"

(Page Break)

"So you like Maya eh?" Misato asked, taking her eyes off the road for a moment.

Shinji just nodded in reply before rubbing the bridge of his nose between two fingers, at the impending ribbing.

"You know, I think she's single; actually, I haven't seen her with a man at all, while I've been here at least… in fact, the only person I've seen her with outside work is Rits… you don't think?"

Shinji interrupted her with a slow shake of his head before giving her a sad smile.

"I'd rather not talk about Ibuki-san behind her back like this." At this Misato raised an eyebrow.

"Ibuki-san? From the way she switched between glaring at me to making sure you were okay and clinging to you I'd've thought you were a smidge closer than that."

She shot him a look only to find him staring out the window.

"So whad'ya think of Rits Shinji?"

She saw him turn around out of the corner of her eye. "Rits?"

"You know, the blond in the bathing suit an lab coat! She met us in the lift!" she declared, idly changing gears as she sped through the city.

"Oh, she's alright I suppose. Bit old for me like, why? Is she an old flame of yours or something?" a sly smirk made its way onto his face as she turned beet red and purposely threw the car around the next corner, barely dodging an oncoming van.

(Page Break)

"So what'd'ya say we celebrate a bit, not everyday I get a new room mate?" Shinji gave her a guarded look, moving away from her slightly, before saying, "Define 'Celebrate'".

She gave him a small smile before she changed direction, heading towards a nearby shop instead of her apartment complex.

"I mean order a takeaway, have a few beers and watch a good film, sound good?"

"Yeah, got a film in mind? Preferably with big assed explosions?" he hinted, before resettling in his seat.

"Yeah, I have the perfect film in mind…"

(Page Break)

"_Say hello to my little friend!"_

Shinji watched as the man onscreen began to slaughter countless mobsters as he opened fire with his 'little friend'.

He froze as he felt someone snuggle into his lap; a pair of arms wrapped themselves tightly around his waist before he looked down, slightly relieved as he noticed his new guardian was asleep he made himself as comfortable as he could before settling down and watching the rest of the film and falling into a light sleep.

(Page Break)

Misato snuggled into her pillow and tightened her grip on it before she noticed it was warm, and that she was still fully clothed.

'What the hell?' she thought as she picked herself up, away from her 'pillow' finally noticing it was not only the wrong colour, but the wrong shape.

'Wait, my pillows aren't black…and why am I on the couch?'

Finally she noticed the couch's other occupant, a young man dressed in a pair of black jeans and a black cotton T-shirt, with an unruly mess of chocolate hair atop his head.

'Okay, why the hell did I fall asleep in Shinji's lap last night?' she slowly untangled herself from the young man before trying to slip away into her room to get changed.

"Morning Misato."

She blinked before looking over at her new charge.

"I've been awake awhile, I'm just trying to get rid of this damn headache." He continued, before cracking open one eye and giving her a weak smile. "You haven't got any aspirin have you?"

She rolled her eyes before throwing the bottle she kept on her at him, managing to nail him on the forehead.

"Take two with water." She ordered, grimacing when she watched him swallow them dry.

(Page Break)

"Just aim at the centre of the target and fire." The command came over the internal comm. system inside the simulator, he'd been in NERV for over three hours already and had only just gotten suited up for simulator practice; the previous two and a half hours having been his compulsory medical as a pilot, not that there was anything wrong with him in the first place.

Inside the plug Shinji subconsciously set his shoulders before firing off a three round burst that went high of his still target; quickly he dropped behind a building, taking cover behind its armoured surface.

"What the hell are you doing Shinji?" a bemused voice asked, a comm. window oddly popping up in the middle of his view screen.

"Taking cover, getting hit hurt enough the first time." He grumbled before cutting the connection.

(Page Break)

"Unit 01 is abandoning the rifle! Prog knife engaged!"

Ritsuko looked up form her station before letting out a few choice curses as she began furiously typing away, nearly screaming out of frustration as it spat errors back at her.

"_Ikari! Stop your advance and resume ranged attack! That is an order!"_

Nearly everyone in the room turned and openly gaped at the speaker whilst the purple Eva onscreen ducked around the digital form of its opponent, ducking back into the buildings and crouching behind a nearby supply building.

"Why the hell is it just stood there? I was fucking open!"

"It's not in the simulation Shinji-kun." Maya sighed as she tapped a few key's loading another rifle into the supply building, before listening to Shinji as he muttered something to himself.

"This is supposed to be training yeah? What good's me using the damn thing for target practise unless it's gonna be difficult for me? I mean come on! The thing didn't even react when I was stood in front of it ready to impale it!"

She looked over at her superior, who'd stopped typing as she sat back and listened to the two converse. "Can we fix that? It'd save us some work down the line."

The older woman nodded before they both began to program rapidly, before giving Shinji the okay to attack at close range as well.

(Page Break)

"Maya, can I ask you something about Shinji?" the question shook the room's other two occupants out of their brooding; they'd been studying the data from the simulation that morning, like they had been all day, and it was already past midnight.

"Was Shinji always like this? I mean, it just seems odd that he doesn't seem to have any friends… whenever I ask about it he just shrugs and changes the subject."

The youngest of the three women sighed and turned around to face the young man in question's guardian, before slowly replying, "I really don't like talking about Shinji-kun behind his back like this, but, you're his guardian so… He never really had any friends, sure he had people he'd hang out with, but I never once saw him really happy… well, that one time when he fell asleep in my arms…" she blushed as she remembered the night, it had been fairly intimate, and she was sure it was a scene she'd remember for the rest of her life.

"Misato? Do you mind if I stop at your place for the night?" a small smirk crept onto Misato's face as the young scientist asked before nodding.

"Sure, I doubt Shinji-kun will mind."

(Page Break)

"Shinji? You still awake?" the captain asked quietly as both her and Maya slipped into the apartment, looking around as the young man in question waved an arm from the couch.

"Yeah, not like it matters I'm at school tomorrow, so who's with you?" he asked, lazily not bothering to look. Maya sent Misato a 'shush' motion before sneaking up behind Shinji, before pouncing on him from behind the couch.

He looked puzzled for a moment or two before returning the hug loosely, closing his eyes for a moment as he did so, a low rumbling sound emitting itself from his chest as he did so.

'Did he just? Damn that's kinky!' Misato blinked before heading to the fridge, intent on a drink before she headed for bed. 'No beer. What? What happened?'

She chanced a look across at the two laid curled on the couch, blinking as she noticed that Maya had almost instantly nodded off.

"Shinji? How come the fridge's empty?" he gave her a curious look before rolling his eyes.

"No, it's just not full of beer, I put most of it into the cupboard, figured you could just cool a couple at a time, makes more room for real food. Anyway, can you give me a hand with Maya-san? I kinda can't get my legs out from under her." Misato shrugged and walked over to him, gently lifting Maya's weight off his legs then shifting her so that she was still nestled against Shinji's chest comfortably.

"Can you manage?" She gave Shinji a smile before ruffling his hair. "Well in that case I'm gonna go to bed. Night."

A few moments later, Shinji had managed to get Maya to his bed without waking her, gently laying her down he tried weakly to slide out of her tight embrace, only to sigh and lay down next to her.

(Page Break)

Maya sighed and snuggled into the warm body behind her, pulling the arms around her tighter before falling back to sleep.

(Page Break)

For once Shinji didn't bolt awake with a start, startled out of his restless sleep by a memory induced nightmare; instead he slowly woke to a gentle embrace with a warm body, her naked soft skin and subtle curves pressed against him.

'_Wait a minute; she was still dressed when I fell asleep last night.'_ He felt her stir against him and froze.

"Morning Shinji-kun." She offered with a small smile, the thin sheet fell away from her body as she sat up, pressing herself against him she laid a long kiss on his lips before pushing him back down and snuggling into his chest.

"Oi! Shinji! Don't forget you've got school!" the young man's purple haired guardian shouted as she left the apartment, the tumblers falling back into place as the door locked with a near silent _click_.

"Shinji-kun, just hold me, please?" the young woman asked meekly as she pulled his arms around her smaller body, desperately trying as steal some warmth from him.

"Sure Maya, not like I even need to go anyway…" he replied, tightening the embrace.

(Page Break)

"I'll see you later Maya-san, I've got more tests after school yeah?" he asked, stepping around the car to the driver's side; after spending most of the morning cuddling with Maya, she'd offered to drive him to school, her car had been parked in Misato's spot as they'd driven it back to the apartment the previous night, Misato's own car still being repaired from his initial adventure upon arriving in-city.

"Yeah, oh and Shinji?" The young man in question met her gaze as she smiled at him.

"Thanks for caring." The young man returned her smile before heading into the building, turning and giving her a wave as he reached the doors.

(Page Break)

Shinji looked around bored, he'd been listening to the teacher ramble on about the second impact; now whilst he wasn't sure exactly what caused the second impact, he had a feeling it sure as hell wasn't a meteor, after all, if a meteor _had_ hit the Earth, one large enough to knock it off its axis would've also kicked up enough dust to cool the Earth, not something that accompanied a permanent summer, more like an ice age.

He blinked as a message popped up on screen,

_Is it true?_

Looking around he rolled his eyes before he spotted a pair of girls waving at him.

_Are you the pilot for that robot?_

He thought for a moment before smirking.

_That's classified information._

His smirk widened as he heard a shocked gasp spring from the back of the room, he never said he was, and he wasn't lying, he'd just said that it was classified, which it was.

_Further questioning will endanger your life, the walls have ears._

'_Well, that should keep them quiet._' He chuckled as he heard several muffled gasps form the back of the room, '_Okay, so the walls don't have ears, but my security detail does…_' he corrected himself mentally, before chuckling again.

(Page Break)

"Hey, new kid, outside, now." Shinji turned to face the speaker, his large chest and thin arms gave him the look of an ape, but then again, apes had more manners.

Shinji turned and followed him his feet lightly tapping the floor as he casually warmed up.

Once the pair were outside the speaker stopped a few steps away, facing Shinji as he spoke. "So you're the pilot eh? My sister got injured because of the stunt of yours! What the hell were you thinking?"

"I was trying to stay alive, considering I'd already been run over, pelted with debris from an N2 mine, oh and let's not forget nearly fucking crushed by a falling plane I'd say I did a pretty good job wouldn't you? Especially considering I'd never even heard of the damn thing before yesterday!" Shinji shouted, pinning the younger man up against the wall by his collar, stilling him with a glare.

The younger man sighed before shaking his head slightly, "Sorry, I'm just pissed off you know? I'm supposed to protect my little sister, and all I could do was stand and watch as the rescue team pulled her free of the rubble…"

Shinji let the younger man go, laying a hand on his shoulder.

"I know how you feel, and from now on I'm going to try and keep the battle out of the city. That's what I've been doing nearly every day, training to fight, so the next time one of those things shows up I'll win." As he said that, his mobile rang, vibrating in his pocket and rattling against his apartment keys.

Letting go of the young man, he stepped back, pulling out his phone and answering it in one smooth motion.

"Ikari here."

A few moments of silence prevailed before he spoke once again, before turning around and sprinting off.

(Page Break)

"Pattern blue, it's an Angel!" one of the techs shouted, not that it mattered, everyone present already knew that, no man-made weapon moved like that.

"Launch Eva 01!"

(Page Break)

Shinji let out a grunt as he felt the pressure against him for the few seconds it took to reach the surface, before snatching up the rifle at his feet when the restraints unlocked.

Ducking around the corner of the lift he fired off a quick burst with the rifle, only to dive across the floor as a glowing whip-like limb sliced its way through the lift, leaving a glowing red line of molten metal in its place.

"Look out!" Misato cried over the comm. as the second appendage snapped towards him, missing his legs by a hair's breadth.

"Power cable severed!"

Shinji let out a growl before grabbing the tentacles and beginning to drag the Angel out of the city, he'd made a promise and he was damn well going to keep it.

"Move!" he screamed as he tugged harder, before it suddenly flew over him, the tentacles snapping in the direction he'd been pulling, sending him flying onto a nearby hill.

Two magnified faces appeared to his left, two of his classmates sat huddled together not three feet from where his hands would've landed had he not been gripping the Angel's tentacles.

"Damn it! Civilians! Orders?" he shouted, doing his best to keep the energetic angel still.

"Let them into the entry plug! Hurry!" Not wanting to waste time he slammed a fist against a large button on the side of his cockpit, he waited a few seconds before opening the main hatch.

"Get in! Now!" he bellowed, forcefully hurling in the pair as they pulled themselves up to get in. Shinji slammed the button once again before trying to focus his mind on one thing.

The cockpit screens began to show static as the young pilot released the tentacles, activating the progressive knife stored in his shoulder, before he felt the Eva slowly slam it into the Angel's core.

"DIE!" he screamed, shocking his two 'passengers' into a blank state of mind, at least they weren't worrying anymore.

He felt the arms tense and push harder against the knife as he regained more control over the Eva.

"Thirty seconds remaining!" Maya's familiar voice reported over the comm., slightly distorted by his single-mindedness on his goal.

"FUCKING DIE!" He screamed again, this time forcing the Eva to crouch and use its legs to push up against the knife.

"Target has…" Shinji sighed as he relaxed, before suddenly tensing, wrapping his arms around his stomach, whilst the cockpit around him faded out.

(Page Break)

"What were you thinking?" Shinji gingerly touched his cheek with his hand, wincing as a fresh wave of pain struck him from it, it was already slightly swollen and red from his debriefing session with Captain Katsuragi, and now he'd just been slapped again, and by Maya no less. "They were civilians in the plug! What the hell were you doing attacking the Angel like that?"

"Trying to stay alive." Was his cold reply, the response shocked the young tech into silence as he continued, "Retreat would've been impossible, the nearest access route had been destroyed on deployment, and with two civilians hampering my control I'd've not got much further than that without getting my arse handed to me. It's nothing short of a miracle I managed to get off with just being impaled as it is."

With that said he turned on his heel and marched away from her, the automatic door swishing shut behind him as she began to sob quietly.

(Page Break)

The man watched impressed as Shinji ruthlessly attacked the punch bag, each fist striking hard and fast but staying long enough to hit the bag properly, rather than waste a large amount of force on nothing.

Shinji paused in his assault, wiping a trickle of sweat off his forehead that'd been threatening to drip into his eyes; he'd not been beating the bag that long, in fact most of his time had been spent running on the nearby treadmill and after that on the weight machines that littered the room.

"Problems with Maya-san?"

Shinji whirled around and dropped into a fighting stance, the man having managed to sneak up on him during his exercises.

"Who're you?" he snapped, his already deep breathing giving him a dangerous edge.

"Calm down, I'm Shigeru Aoba, I'm one of the techs, I work with Maya-san on the command deck." the older man stated, walking towards Shinji, before gesturing to the mats set up nearby. "Up for a spar?"

(Page Break)

Shinji sighed as he tried to slip through the living room unnoticed, more to do with the large purple bruise he had over his left eye, than his bust lip, or the fact that his knuckles were also bruised; in short, he'd had one hell of a spar with Aoba.

"Where do you think you're going young man?" Shinji blinked before sighing again, stepping in front of the couch, where his guardian no doubt lay. "What the hell happened to you? Have you been fighting?"

"Not quite, sparring with Aoba-san, why?" he asked innocently, even though he knew exactly why, he'd spent a fair bit of time cleaning the blood off his face from his bust lip in the gym changing rooms after their spar.

"Shigeru? I'll teach him to pick on someone his own size next time I see him!" Misato growled, her mind clouded in anger that a grown man could pick on the boy, the only available pilot they had at that!

"Wait! We were sparring damn it! We just got a bit carried away, besides, I'm fairly sure I broke his nose, and gave him one hell of a black eye. Trust me; he'll be sore in the morning." Shinji quickly corrected, considering he'd needed that spar badly, the punching bag had just been getting him more and more angry.

"Fine! But if he ever does this again I'll kill him!" Shinji didn't reply, instead he quietly retreated to his room, switching on his stereo, normally he'd just listen to his MP3 player, but considering that got shattered on the first day here he'd be stuck without music otherwise.

(Page Break)

"Shinji? I'm heading over to the lab we've set up to study the last Angel you killed, I won't be back while late. Okay?" Shinji let out a groan before rolling over, idly wondering why she had to tell him that anyway, it wasn't as if he couldn't get in touch if he needed her; but at least she'd been quiet after he came in last night, or it could've been that his music had drowned out any noise she'd made, but that was besides the point.

_Ring_

Shinji blinked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, before stumbling to the phone in the living room.

"Hello?" he asked wearily, wanting nothing more than to crawl back into bed, he'd had to get up for school all week, and it wasn't as if people called the apartment on a weekend for Misato, they all called her mobile, that way it didn't matter where she was they could still get in touch.

"Shinji-kun?" he blinked before his mind caught up with him.

"Maya-san?" he asked tentatively, almost feeling her nod through the phone before replying.

"Yeah, I just wanted to apologise for what I did yesterday."

"It's fine Maya, anyway, have you seen Aboa-san?" he replied, shifting his weight from one foot to the other idly.

"Yeah, why? Do you know something about how he got so beat-up? Shinji cringed as he replied.

"Yeah, we were sparring and kinda got a bit carried away…"

"You broke his nose sparring? What the hell were you doing?" she nearly screamed, causing Shinji to wince as he moved the phone away from his ear slightly.

"Sparring without padding." He casually replied, before sitting on the end of the table, settling in for a long conversation.

And that was how the two spent the next few hours, sat, talking away down the phone to the other, just discussing their lives.

AN: That's it for the first chapter. Like it? Hate it? Want to string me up for butchering the Anime? Tell me in a Review!

Omake:

"Hel-lo? Is this Miss-es Kut-sur-gei…Kat-sur-gei…Kat-sur-agi?" A male voice asked from the phone, stumbling over his words.

"Do I sound like a Miss Katsuragi to you? No! If you're gonna fucking call do it when she's at least fucking in!" he shouted, before slamming the phone down.

"Fucking telemarketers…" he grumbled and headed into the shower.


	2. Chapter 2

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Remastered

By Death 12

Chapter 2

"Great, another Angel, where the fuck do they keep coming from? And why do we call them Angels anyway? I mean come on!" Shinji ranted to himself as he walked down the corridor, already suited up and heading towards the cages; he'd been in the pilot changing rooms showering when the alarm had sounded, whilst the gym had changing rooms nearby, the shower's weren't anywhere near as good as those in the pilot changing rooms, so he'd gone there to relax after his usual workout session instead.

"That was quick, the alarm only sounded a few minutes ago, were you on base already?" Shinji looked up from the floor and nodded at the tech, before hopping into his open entry plug, hitting the button to insert it into the Eva's body before ducking his head into the foot well as the cockpit filled with LCL.

Slowly he sat up; his movements sluggish in the thick liquid that now filled the plug.

A screen blinked into view at his left side, the Eva having been activating whilst he'd been readapting to breathing a liquid, one that tasted remarkably like blood at that.

"Shinji, your target is the new Angel that's moving towards the centre of the city, we have no data on its capabilities, but we think it's likely to be geared towards long range attacks considering its form. Eva 01, Launch."

Shinji absorbed the data during the short few seconds it took him to surface, tearing the Eva free of the remaining bindings as the catapult disappeared in a flash of orange.

(Page break)

"Thank god…" Misato breathed as she watched the area where the Eva catapult had been became visible once again, the camera they'd been using for visual footage having been blinded by the energy blast from the Angel. "Retreat!"

The three technicians before her scrambled to find a close enough catapult that wouldn't mean Shinji running towards the Angel.

(Page Break)

Buildings whipped past his view as he ran forwards, shots from the floating octahedron filling in the space behind him as he tried to keep himself from being turned into Swiss cheese.

He noticed too late as the shots stopped coming, in their place a large beam beginning to launch itself ahead of him, to make him run into the shot rather than past it.

A muted boom blasted its way inside the entry plug as the timer to the right of his view changed to show less than a minute remaining.

Spotting a shaft in his path Shinji willed it to open as he sprinted forwards, dropping into the now open shaft.

He smiled as the doors closed above him, followed by a second pair and then a third as he dropped further.

Sensing the ground beneath him he landed the Eva in a flawed brake fall, suddenly away of a cold sensation from his right arm and several angry marks across his back.

Closing his eyes he let himself drift away, his body finally out of adrenalin the sudden attack had shot through his system.

(Page break)

"Nice to see you awake Shinji-kun, especially after the last time you were in here, it took you two days to recover, but this time it's only taken about three hours." Shinji shifted in his bed, finally sitting up and throwing back the covers, half rolling out of the bed he stood and stretched slightly, managing to work the crick out of his neck that'd developed from his odd sleeping position.

"So what happened? Is that thing at least _dead_?" he asked, looking around the room for a shirt to pull on over his bare chest, not that he was uncomfortable with Maya around, far from it, he found himself more comfortable around her than anyone else, but he didn't want to be wandering around the Geo-front half naked.

"No, we've been waiting for you to wake up so we could brief you on the new operation to destroy the Angel. The Colonel wants you to report to the briefing room on the command level once you've finished eating." With that said she gestured to the cart next to her, a small meal sat on a plate covered by a plastic lid.

And with no further a due, Shinji dug in like a man starved.

(Page Break)

He frowned as he felt the Eva shift beneath him, surely there was another reason that both he and Unit 01 had been given position as Sniper besides his superior Sync ratio, it wasn't as if they needed pin point accuracy on this scale, surely just hitting the damn thing in one place would kill it.

He thought back to how Rei had just nodded as she'd been given the order to defend him; surely she wasn't that cold, that emotionless.

The announcement of the operation starting jarred him from his thoughts, he could feel the rifle hum as it began to activate; chambering the first round he focused himself on the elimination of the target, he heard muffled voices crying out in alarm as he saw the light building up on the side of the Angel's form, he pulled the trigger as the aim assist centred on his target.

His gaze weakened as he felt the rifle in his hands explode against him, the sheer power that'd been forced through it having annihilated the barrel's cooling system, before it heated up the stored rounds to a temperature high enough to trigger them, their cores detonating inside the rifle.

"Target destruction confirmed."

(Page Break)

Shinji opened his eyes as he sat up in the plug, now strangely devoid of LCL.

"Are you harmed Pilot Ikari?" he looked up as the cold voice reached his ears, only to find a pair of confused red eyes staring back at him, framed by a head of blue hair.

"I'm fine Ayanami-san. How long was I out?"

Rei looked at him confused before tilting her head slightly, as if trying to understand what he had meant.

"I do not understand. You have not left the entry plug since you fired the positron rifle." Shinji shook his lightly head at her before correcting his statement.

"I meant how long was I unconscious for?" The blue haired girl watching, no analysing him, nodded in new understanding.

"You were unconscious for less than a few moments."

"And the Angel?"

"Confirmed destroyed."

(Page Break)

Shinji sighed as he lay down; he'd only just managed to get home after a quick medical and a lengthy debriefing session, that'd taken most of the remaining time, as it was now nearly seven in the morning and the combat had only lasted a few moments he'd been trying to stop himself from falling asleep during the session.

'_Oh well, at least I can_ finally _get some sleep._' He thought as he snuggled into his covers, only to stop as he felt someone lay down next to him, their warm arms wrapping themselves around his waist and hugging him tightly.

"Shinji-kun." A light voice whispered softly, a slight shiver running down his spin as the woman's warm breath tickled the back of his neck.

"Maya-san?" he asked hesitantly, still unsure of himself in these situations, no matter how often they cropped up.

"I'm glad you're safe Shinji-kun…" she whispered into his hair, hugging him tighter before burying her face in his hair.

Shinji slid around in her embrace before returning the embrace, not noticing as her fingers traced a scar running across his chest, running from just above his right peck to just below his left.

(Page Break)

Shinji awoke and headed into the kitchen, as he usually did on a morning, only to find something he'd already brushed off as impossible, during his first few weeks in Tokyo 3 after the Third Angel; the reason it was the Third Angel still eluded him as well, even if he went with his gut and said the Second Impact was caused by an Angel that still left him one short.

Brushing the stray thought off he blinked and rubbed the sleep from his eyes before looking at the table once again, not only was Misato up before him, she was also fully dressed and gently sipping a cup of black coffee instead of her usual beer.

"Did the world end while I was asleep or something?" he mumbled as he walked past her, starting to prepare himself breakfast.

Misato blinked as she looked up from her coffee, before looking over at him.

"Huh? Oh this? I've got to go to a conference with Rits about some new 'Anti-Angel' weapon…phff, like that'll ever work…Idiots…"

Shinji shrugged at her before carrying on, nodding his head in the appropriate places as he prepared himself something to eat.

(Page Break)

Misato sighed as she looked out the window of the transport, her eyes idly running over the flooded city, trying to imagine what it had been like before the second impact.

She looked away, suddenly trying to find something, _anything_, to take her mind off that event, and what had happened during it.

"_We've arrived, touch down in five._" A voice came over the headset she was wearing, finally derailing her thoughts for her, turning them towards the impending conference and subsequent demonstration had her worried, not for herself, no, she didn't really care about herself, her lifestyle was proof enough of that, instead she was worried about what would happen to Shinji and the people she knew if something went wrong, considering if her Intel was right the thing ran off a nuclear reactor, and was a close combat weapon to boot.

(Page Break)

"So any questions before we go over to the demonstration area?" A man asked from the room's stage, using a microphone to speak over the various speakers dotted around the room.

"Yes, I have one." Ritsuko blinked as she watched Misato wave her arm to draw his attention, before standing up and stepping away from the table slightly, clearly prepared to rip into this new design quite viciously. "What happens when it gets attacked, from your earlier explanation you said it was controlled directly by remote, but what happens when an Angel grabs hold of it and say, tries to rip off one of the arms, does it counter it automatically or do you have to send it a command to do that or what? Please, explain it to me."

"Well, we'd send a signal to counteract the move and then send another to attack it using the opening. Does that satisfy you Miss?" the man replied arrogantly, looking over the crowd to answer more questions, only to have his attention violently dragged back to Misato.

"No. In fact, it makes me sceptical you'll even get it to react quickly enough to slow an Angel down. Against three Angels our main pilot has currently defeated two within his first contact with them, every time within the operational time limit, whilst you say your toy can run for over a hundred days easily, what good is that when combat with an Angel is completed within a matter of minutes? And for that matter, this toy of yours runs on a nuclear reactor doesn't it? So what happens when the reactor gets breached and the waste seeps out into its environment, contaminating it? What happens if it's in an urban environment? After all, considering its probable reaction times that's quite likely."

The young man stood stunned for a moment before pressing a button on the remote, playing a video clip of the fight between the Third Angel and Eva 01 from the point where the Eva's internal battery ran out.

Most of the group gathered there gasped in shock as they watched the weapon get back to its feet and commence attacking the Angel.

Once the clip ended the man smirked, "So you're saying that the pilot defeated all three angels within the operational time limit? Yet we've just seen your Eva run out of power in the battle against the First Angel, and the way it attacked, that wasn't your pilot in control, that was a berserker, no doubt about it."

Misato's own smirk grew feral as she replied, "As NERV's Chief Tactical officer and supervisor of all Eva operations, I can say that not only was the Angel defeated within the _operational_ time limit, but that was most definitely the pilot in control, in all of our Eva operations, an Eva has only gone berserk once, and that was during Eva 00's original activation test, which I am please to say, injured no one, as it was safely contained, and not only that, but it has subsequently been reactivated and used in an operation to defeat an angel." She gave him a saccharine smile before waving her hand dismissively.

"But I'm sure everyone here doesn't care about how _reliable_ and _combat proven_ our Eva's are, so why don't we head on over to see this demonstration that you've gotten set up for us to show us your little toy."

The man glared at her but then nodded, agreeing with her through gritted teeth.

(Page Break)

The group entered a large control room, with one of the walls featuring the requisite wall sized view screen, whilst the others were a plain grey, the type of grey featured by simplistic militaristic buildings, such as prefab testing grounds with 'safe' concrete bunkers, much like the one they were in.

"If you'd like to view the proceedings you can do so from the small viewing windows over there beneath the main screen, we'll begin the demonstration shortly." The man who'd been leading the conference so far said, pointing over to the windows before standing over the techs at the highest consoles, taking what appeared to be operational command.

(Page Break)

Both Misato and Ritsuko looked bored as they leaned against a nearby wall, neither impressed by the giant robot simply walking, after watching Shinji fight three Angels they'd already become jaded to this simple display, especially considering that he'd managed to score his first kill without any training or real instruction.

A sudden startled cry from near the main two consoles focused their wandering attention.

"What do you mean it isn't responding? That damn thing's programmed to react to any emergency situation!"

Misato turned to give her companion a look, "And what was he saying about rampaging Eva's earlier? Idiot. Can you tell HQ to have Shinji put on standby for launch? I think we're going to be the ones cleaning this mess up."

The blond nodded before turning to look out the view window at the approaching robot, an amused twinkle in her eye as it raised its gigantic foot and carried on walking forwards, right through the command building they were viewing form.

"That's your queue isn't it? Go save the world, I'll call HQ and have them prep Shinji for launch." Misato nodded before marching over to the middle of the room, somehow undamaged by the sudden redesign.

"That wasn't in your plan I take it?" The man looked over at her, sneering at her before turning back to the tech he was talking to, trying to find the root of the problem. "Fine, ignore me, I'll just have Unit 01 rip the damn thing to pieces then; I'm sure your investors would love to see that happen." With that said she turned on her heel and began to talk away, stopping as a voice cried out to her.

"Wait!" She turned slightly to look at the tech who'd shouted to her, pointedly ignoring the man who'd been sneering at her a moment ago as he looked up to shout something at her. "You know that it has an onboard nuclear reactor right? There should be a complete manual override built in for this situation, it wipes all program data then inserts the cooling rods. I'd love to tell you what the password is, but the only one who knows it is that guy there." He said, pointing at the man who was sneering once again, this time giving the tech a disgusted look.

With that Misato's hand disappeared into her jacket, before reappearing after a moment, complete with a Berretta 9mm, a simple weapon that'd been employed around the world by the police before the second impact, nowadays they tended to carry weapons with a higher stopping power, things such as the MP5SD or the M4 Carbine were now commonly used because of the rioting and general lawlessness that'd occurred shortly after the second impact, resulting in many countries expanding their territory or collapsing all together, most notable the many Arab nations had united, along with many countries in Europe, to form new consolidated world powers.

"What's the password?" The man sneered at her once again, before looking away, apparently content with his safety.

A shot sounded as the man collapsed to the floor, a hole torn through his knee.

"Now I've asked politely, so what's the fucking password before I blow your fucking balls off?" she screamed at him, standing over his prone form. She tucked her gun away as she walked away, having heard his small squeak before he passed out.

(Page Break)

Shinji sighed as he stretched off once again, already in his plug suit and prepared to launch in his Eva. Misato had scrambled onboard the plane moments earlier, ordering their pilot to take off after the berserk robot and to prep Eva 01 for launch.

"So I've just got to stop it from getting any closer right? What about if the reactor melts down before I've stopped it? Should I use my AT-field to contain the blast?" Shinji questioned, idly tapping in a command to alter his plug suits temperature on its built in computer, allowing him to breath a little easier, whilst the suit was designed to link him with his Eva, it was also designed with his survival in mind should he have to eject in hostile territory or environment.

"Yeah, but it won't come to that, now prep for launch."

(Page Break)

A scowl worked its way onto his face as he felt his Eva hit the floor, working to balance the Eva wasn't easy at the best of times, especially after a quick start, so it took all his focus to not collapse when his Eva hit the floor on minimal power, to maximise the time he had to restrain his target.

"Switching over to full power." He idly reported as he sprinted forwards, feeling the ground begin to tear up beneath his feet as he closed on his target.

"Brace for impact." He warned Misato, having had her take refuge in the Eva's mouth to avoid injuring her because of the wind resistance his Eva caused.

Shinji threw his Eva into a sliding tackle as he reached the renegade robot, taking its feet out from under it he wrapped the Eva's own around them, before doing the same to the arms, before locking the robot's joints in place, struggling against the robot's constant pressure.

Closing his head to the robot's back he opened his mouth, allowing Misato's contamination suit clad form to clamber onto the robot's back and open the single access port.

(Page break)

Misato raised her fist to Shinji as she signalled her success before jumping inside, grunting as she landed heavily; the drop had been further than she'd thought, doubtless she'd be aching once she woke up tomorrow morning.

Groaning she picked herself up from the floor, franticly looking around to get her bearings, forcing herself back to her feet, before continuing down the having slid halfway across when the giant robot shifted for some reason unknown to her.

When the console in the centre of the room before her came into view she gave a sigh of relief, before stumbling over and typing in the password slowly so she didn't make a mistake. Only to cry out in alarm as it spat an Error back at her.

She tried again twice more only to be shot down both times, the password being rejected by the system. Looking over at the control rods that lined the room she walked across to one and began to push against it in the vein hope of it moving beneath her weight.

The floor came up to greet her as she felt the rod finally sink in, the light in the room shifting to a soft green as opposed to the harsh red it had been.

"Hey Shinji, you there?" she asked hesitantly, unsure if his Eva would still have power or not after subduing the machine.

"Yeah I'm here Misato, I put the Eva onto minimal power after breaking the thing's arms and legs, but until a clean up crew get here I can't move, not got enough power left. So we're stuck here I'm afraid." Shinji sighed and laid back, setting in for the long haul whilst someone got an Eva sized clean up crew out to them.

(Page Break)

Shinji sighed as he sat down on the couch, laying his head back against the cushions and closing his eyes, idly remembering that in a few days he and Misato had to meet the Second Child on her transport into Japan, so far from what he'd heard about her he had a sinking feeling it wasn't going to be a fond meeting.

(Page Break)

"So, excited about meeting the second child?" the purple haired woman asked, leaning over and into speaking into his ear; her open flight jacket and low cut top giving him an ample view.

He brushed her hair away from her ear and leaned in to reply, only to be violently thrown against his harness.

Misato's hands flew to the back of her head as she jerked her head off the bulkhead, trying to pull them back as she felt her fingers were wet.

She looked up at him as she tried to speak, only to blink as nothing came out, closing her mouth again she focused on what he said, ignoring the way his larger hands pressed her own against the back of her head.

"You're bleeding."

(Page Break)

A young redhead glared as she watched a pair of people leave the now landed helicopter, its rotors rapidly slowing to a stop with the engine now turned off.

The duo made a beeline for the greeting party, the taller of the two shouting whilst he pressed the woman's hands against her own head and tried to support her at the same time.

She turned around and stalked towards the nearby stairwell, intent on catching up to the new arrivals.

(Page Break)

"Anywhere around here where I can wash my hands?" the nurse looked at him oddly before pointing him over a man as tall as him, his unshaved beard and lanky build gave him a look younger than his years.

"Know anywhere where I can clean my hands?" he asked the new arrival, somewhat surprised as the newcomer replied in flawless, though accented, Japanese.

"Yeah, there's a bathroom just down the hall on the left mate, you can clean em there." The man scratched his unshaven beard before looking over at the woman sat still with a nurse inspecting the cut before sighing and shaking his head. "Oh Misato, what are we going to do with you?"

(Page Break)

Shinji groaned as he put his shoulder against the door, not budging an inch under the contact, before he slammed against it, smirking slightly as it cracked open, revealing a small empty bathroom, quickly he rinsed his hands clean before washing his face, all manner of dirt and dust had collected on his face on the flight over and the landing.

He lent up once he was finished before looking around for a towel or hand dryer, finding none he simply pulled his t-shirt off and used that before pulling it back on once again.

Blue eyes watched him from the door, curiously devouring his mannerisms before frowning, _this_ was the third child? This kid who'd dry off with his t-shirt when he'd been covered in what looked like blood.

"'Scuse me." He said as he brushed past her, ignoring her presence completely.

(Page Break)

A tall, thin man looked up from his coffee as a young woman strode into the room, her flowing yellow dress complimenting her vibrant red hair, whilst her clear blue eyes called out to him.

"Kaji-san?" she asked, sitting across form him, laying her hands out on the table, just short of his own, she took a breath before she continued, "Do you know if the third child's here yet? I saw a chopper land earlier and some kid cleaning himself up in one of the bathrooms…" she trailed off at that, unsure of how to continue, whilst with most people she wouldn't have asked, this was Kaji-san, her rock, she knew he wasn't going to up and leave on her, no not him, not like that.

"Yeah, they're here, that was him actually, his guardian managed to split her head open on the way here and he covered it for her when she went into shock, stopped her from panicking; I'd say he did quite well considering how Misato gets when she _does_ panic." He chuckled lightly as he recalled something, before downing the rest of his tepid coffee.

Standing he offered her his arm before leading her out of the room.

(Page Break)

"Hey Shinji!" Kaji offered as he saw a sullen looking young man lounging inside one of the unoccupied break rooms, a red jacket wrapped around his shoulders.

"Hey. So're you the guy we're supposed to meet or what?" he asked simply, giving the man a rather bored expression as he leaned up, before turning his gaze to the red head moving to sit on his feet, idly he pulled them up slightly, making room for her.

"Yeah, my name's Kaji, pleasure to meet you Mr. Ikari. Not everyday you get to meet someone who's killed three Angels without being defeated." He said offering his hand, shaking Shinji's as he gripped it. "And this stunning beauty is Asuka Langley Souryu, the second child." Shinji moved and offered her his hand, only to find her staring at it limply.

"What? Don't you Germans shake hands anymore?" he asked lamely, blinking as she continued to stare at him, turning back to Kaji he spoke, "She this much of a space case normally or am I just special?"

Kaji gave him a sly smirk, "I think it's because you're special, I think she might have a crush on you myself." _That_ managed to shock Asuka into a response.

"I do _not_ have a crush on him." Her glare turned from Kaji to Shinji, "And I was staring because I was trying to figure out if you were human or not, considering how ugly you are."

Shinji rolled his eyes before getting to his feet, throwing the red jacket over his shoulder as he did so.

"It's only fair to warn you in advance, my girlfriend won't take kindly to your attitude, so I suggest you check it before we get to shore. I'd rather spend my time fighting Angels, not pilots." Asuka's glare intensified against the back of his head as he strolled out of the room, the jacket swaying from side to side as he walked.

(Page Break)

Shinji sighed as he sprawled out again, no longer carrying Misato's jacket with him, having returned it once he'd caught up with her for a moment, having found it draped over him when he woke, apparently having decided to use that room for a nap.

Staring up at the white ceiling he let out another sigh, _'Why did I call Maya-san my girlfriend? I mean, we're close an I do like her in that way, and I'm fairly sure she does too…but…'_ he cut off his train of thought with a groan, running a hand through his hair, before retying his pony-tail, he'd left his hair to grow out a bit and had needed to keep it out of the way, pulling it back into a loose pony-tail had seemed like a good idea to him, but with the way that damn redhead kept looking at him the same way she did that Kaji bloke he was seriously starting to reconsider it, whilst he himself was boarder than the man, nor anywhere near as unshaven, he could still see their odd resemblance causing problems later on.

He rolled to his feet as he fell off the couch, the ship having rocked violently beneath him, something he was sure it wasn't supposed to do, not a ship of this size for definite unless it was under attack.

"Pilot Ikari report to the Bridge, Repeat, Pilot Ikari report to the bridge." Shinji raced out of the room as he heard the announcement, heading up to where he remembered the bridge being.

(Page Break)

The purple haired woman looked at the redhead oddly, as if trying to understand exactly what she was saying, she knew that the equipment her Eva was equipped with wouldn't work underwater, so why was she still after launching in her Eva so desperately?

"Shinji just in time! I want you to launch in Eva unit 02 and defeat the Angel. It's configured with…" Shinji interrupted her as she reeled off her orders, stepping through the door slowly.

"It's configured with B-type equipment I know, I read the file. Should be running two minutes after I get there. Pilot Ikari moving out." He turned on his heel and sprinted away, his t-shirt dropping to the floor where he'd been stood, a silver pendant resting atop it.

"Nice to know he's punctual." Kaji absently commented, only to be glared at by one woman and shouted at by the other.

"What do you mean he's punctual? He's going to be piloting _MY_ Eva out there! That Idiot couldn't get it to activate let alone move!" Kaji gave Asuka a look before replying.

"His sync ratio was over 50 percent on his first activation test. I doubt he'll have any problems with yours, after all, that's the combat model, not the prototype."

(Page Break)

Shinji let out a growl as he forced the Eva to stand, struggling to make his thoughts reach the Eva through some sort of buffer, it was as if the new model had some sort of go-between for the Pilot and Eva, and it was getting in his way.

Seeing the water tearing up and heading towards him he launched the Eva into the air, barely managing to land on another ship, before launching himself across to the aircraft carrier nearby.

He sucked in a breath as he landed, struggling to keep the Eva itself balanced, opening up a channel to the bridge he sent them a message, if it was right it should tell them to get Asuka suited up, if it wasn't, then they were pretty much screwed.

(Page Break)

"What the hell? Make Asuka undressed? What the hell is he talking about?" Misato shouted as she ran the statement through her mind once again, trying to figure out what he was telling them to do, before deciding to ignore it entirely. "Whatever, Asuka, go get suited up, you're going to take over piloting."

"About damn time! I told you he couldn't pilot my Eva!" she shouted before running off to get changed.

(Page Break)

'_Where the hell is she_' Shinji mentally growled as he threw another punch at the now changed Angel, instead of its previously long fish like body, it had now adopted a form similar to his own and that of the Third Angel's, with long gangly arms and long gangly legs trailing out of a fat round body.

Batting away the claws slicing across at his face Shinji threw another punch at the Angel, knocking it back slightly whilst a redhead ran out onto the tarmac landing strip.

Pinning the Angel's arms in place he reached across and hit a button, opening the now dark entry plug after a few moments and pulling in a plug suit clad redhead before jumping out and running into the nearby doorway as he heard the entry plug slide shut behind him.

(Page Break)

"What's happening?" Shinji shouted as he ran onto the bridge, looking around for his purple haired commanding officer, only to hear her shout from behind him.

"She's holding her own, but barely, she's reacting slowly. I'm not sure, but if she keeps this up, I think we'll need you back out there more than her." Misato ran a hand through her long purple hair as she spoke, wincing slightly as her fingers scratched at the scab on the back of her head, tugging at it slightly.

Shinji watched in horror as the red Eva took a crushing blow to the chest, sucking in a breath as he felt a sympathetic bolt of pain soot through his own as he heard what sounded like several ribs cracking under the pressure.

"Hasn't she ever fought in that thing before? What the hell is she doing? I thought she'd been trained to pilot the damn thing!" Shinji shouted as he turned to face Kaji, whose face was shadowed as he heard the results of the battle, being too ashamed to look up and watch his young charge being beaten by the very thing she'd been trained to beat by him and the rest of the German NERV branch since she was too young to remember.

"Answer me damn it!" Shinji roared, slamming the older man against the wall, one hand gripping his shirt tightly, staining it with the blood like LCL, whilst the other slammed against the wall besides Kaji's head, LCL spraying over Kaji's form as it hit.

"…no…" the man replied weakly, as if he simply wished to roll over and die in a corner.

"Well talk to her! She's obviously too damn afraid to fight! Make her hate me, make her hate _you_ if you fucking have to but make her at least _fight_ that fucking thing!" With that Shinji threw the man towards the consoles at the front of the bridge, shoving him against them when he stopped short. "Talk to her damnit!"

Misato watched Shinji order the man in a state of shock, having not seen this coming even in her wildest nightmares. Idly she turned to look around the room, noting that most of the bridge crew were also carrying the same look of disbelief that she was, except oddly enough, the captain.

(Page Break)

A trembling Asuka yanked the useless controls as she made her Eva dodge the incoming blow, too frightened to make any semblance of an attack.

A small window popped up to her right, showing the image of her long-time friend and confident, his face smiling at her despite the situation.

"You're doing good Asuka, now just a little more and we can all go home eh? Just get a hit on its S2 organ like we practised yeah? Then we can all go on home." Asuka looked at the image with fear filled eyes.

"But Kaji, I'm, I'm scared…" she whispered, jerking her Eva out of the way of another attack, letting out a small cry as a second blow hit her already battered chest.

"I know you can do it Asuka, just hit it and then we can all go home, I'll never make you do this again, okay? Just hit that thing and then you can do whatever you want okay? I won't make you do this ever again." Kaji's face gave her another reassuring smile as she nodded, making her Eva lash out at the attacking Angel, knocking it off balance, before lashing out again with another fist, cracking the red orb that sat at the middle of the Angel's chest, before another blow made it dim and slowly fade to black, the now dead Angel collapsed to the deck of the aircraft carrier as Asuka's Eva finally ran out of power, the extra battery pack it'd been fitted with for transport having finally run out.

(Page Break)

Misato watched as Shinji glared at the sullen man sat on the floor, having not moved when Shinji had pushed him out of the way when he hadn't moved after being forced to stand before the console.

"You really are pathetic, all you can do is wallow in your guilt whilst you let a fifteen year old girl fight for her life against something she's never seen before…are you going to go and comfort her or should I do that for you as well?" Shinji snorted as he whirled around on his heel, dashing out of the room towards what Misato assumed was Unit 02, probably to comfort its distraught pilot.

Sighing she herself walked from the room, completely ignoring the man who sat dead still on the floor, she imagined he'd probably gone into shock, but she was right now too disgusted to deal with him, what kind of man wouldn't try to correct his own mistakes and leave them up to others to correct.

(Page Break)

Asuka sat shivering inside the now cold entry plug, still fearing the Angel as light streamed inside the entry plug, a warm body sliding in behind her; a pair of warm arms wrapped around her, pulling her tight against a muscular chest, filling her with warmth.

She shifted around in the embrace and closed her eyes, curling up into the warmth.

(Page Break)

"…Kaji…"

Shinji hugged the redhead tighter as she snuggled into his chest, resting his atop her fiery red mop he closed his eyes, making sure he didn't drift off in as he waited for them to reach land.

(Page Break)

Misato sighed as she laid back into the seat of the jeep, whilst she hadn't taken part in the actual fight she'd been the one ordering everyone in the fleet, a job almost as stressful as actually fighting against the Angel.

She looked across as the pilots walked down the ramp, stopping short when they reached the jeep and the waiting Ritsuko.

"So how was the trip? Have fun?"

The redhead scowled at Shinji as he spat, his apparent disgust at her Eva enraging her.

"Some combat model, I had to contend with some sort of buffer to sync with the damn thing." The blond frowned as Shinji spoke mentally trying to root out the problem.

"There's nothing that should do that…the only thing I can think of is the thought language buffer, considering Unit 01 doesn't have one, that might be the problem, but I can't see why…"

"Besides a problem with me you mean. And what do you mean thought language? Doesn't everyone think in the same language?"

The doctor shook her head lightly. "People think in whatever language they speak, usually their native language, but sometimes it's whatever language they speak on a day to day basis; like an English person would think in English unless they live in France and speak French normally."

Shinji nodded in understanding before he stepped around the jeep, intent on catching up on some sleep on the way back to either their apartment or NERV, once he got there he could take a nice long shower, whilst he'd had one on the ship after leaving Unit 02 he could still feel some LCL in his hair, slowly drying out into a crust… almost like blood would.

(Page Break)

Shinji groaned as he slumped into his seat, he'd been fighting for his life the day before and yet he _still_ had to come to school… sometimes life just wasn't fair.

"Hey, Shinji my man, where were you yesterday?" The young man in question turned around in his seat to face the athletic boy behind him, his face picking up slightly as he explained where he'd been, after all, he'd not been told it was classified.

"So there's a new pilot? Shame she's a bitch though…" Shinji shook his head as his friend spoke.

"She's not really a bitch; she's just covering her insecurities, she's trying to be strong." The other boy nodded in understanding, before turning to face the door as it opened, a redhead casually strolling through it until her eyes fell on Shinji, her eyes softened for a moment before hardening, a slight snarl appearing on her lips as she stopped before the blackboard.

"That her?" Shinji nodded slightly as he heard Toji whisper the question, making sure he didn't take his eyes off his fellow pilot.

The pair watched their new classmate introduce herself arrogantly, before taking a seat directly to Shinji's right, glaring at him as she did so.

"What's her problem?" Toji muttered as he noticed her glare. "You think she'd be happy to know someone in the damn class."

"She probably found out that on paper I'm a better pilot than her, that and I'm due for a promotion." Shinji turned around once the teacher had started his lecture, or more specifically, his ramblings on how much better life was before the Second impact, just like he did every lesson they had him.

Toji just kept staring at him in shock, "You're up for a promotion? Why? I thought after what happened that time they were gonna kick you out, what happened?"

Shinji gave his friend a small smirk.

"I managed to outrun one as it was trying to kill me, then killed it later, stopped a renegade robot from destroying a city, I think it's more to do with me having the most combat experience than anything else… well, that and the fact that I deal the best under stress than the other two, I think they wanted a clear leader for the pilots, so instead of us working on our own against the same enemy we'll work as a team. Or they could just want an excuse to pay me more, considering I live with Misato and she's normally short on cash for things."

It was then he noticed a message appear on his laptop screen.

_I hate you, Bastard._

Shinji blinked at the message, before raising an eyebrow at the redhead to his right.

_You made me weak. I hate you._

Shinji shook his head, before typing back a reply:

'You were already weak, but what I said is still true, I won't make you pilot if you don't want to, I can do this on my own, but look at it this way, you've ended my winning streak.'

He suppressed his smile when she smirked at him, as if she took pleasure from ending his winning streak.

'_At least she's smiling now, but what did she mean I made her weak, apart from on the ship I've never bloody met her…whatever…_'

With that, Shinji settled in for the long haul.

AN: Well, that's it for the second chapter; hopefully this one will stay readable without me editing it.

Omake:

Toji just kept staring at him in shock, "You're up for a promotion? Why? I thought after what happened that time they were gonna kick you out, what happened?"

Shinji gave his friend a small smirk.

"My commanding officer gets lonely sometimes, you catch my drift?"

With that, Toji fainted.


	3. Chapter 3

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Remastered

By Death 12

Chapter 3

Shinji sighed as he remembered the messy introduction the other two pilots had, it'd been when he the three of them were called into the NERV for sync tests, but it hadn't been until he'd been given his promotion to Corporal that the two had met, resulting in Asuka insulting Rei's piloting ability only stopping when he ordered her to shut up, whilst she hadn't liked it, she'd had to deal with it simply because she followed orders.

And that led him up to his present situation, stood on a beach inside his Eva waiting for them to attach his power cable.

He opened a channel to Asuka when his Eva switched over to the power cable, recharging the battery from the new supply.

"Asuka, you attack it from close range and I'll cover you. Copy?"

"Roger, I'll attack at close range whilst you cover me." Shinji frowned slightly as he cut the connection, she'd mechanically repeated his orders, and from what he already knew about her he knew that wasn't a good thing.

Shinji lowered his Eva into a crouch as he levelled the rifle at the slowly approaching Angel, watching it as Asuka advanced on it at a run, her progressive spear tucked neatly inline with her right arm, leaping into the air just before the Angel she arched the spear upwards and then down through the Angel's grey body, cleaving it roughly in half.

"Target destroyed." Asuka reported, turning and walking away from the now halved Angel.

Shinji stared at the Angel closely, frowning as he saw it begin to quiver violently, only to scream a warning moments too late as the two halves suddenly morphed into two copies of the original Angel, only one of them orange and the other the same dull grey.

"Unit 02 down." Asuka reported as she hit the ground, her Eva embedded into the ground further up from the beach, buried in concrete and soil. Shinji dodged one of the two halves first attack before pointing the barrel at the Angel's back, firing off a long burst before leaping back as a blow severed the barrel in half, leaving enough room for him to keep firing the gun, but only accurate enough to hit at point blank.

Twirling his Eva around he ducked around the second of the two Angels and repeated the action, firing the remainder of his magazine into the Angel's back before dropping the weapon as it clicked empty.

Dodging away he drew his prog knife with his left hand, rushing past both Angel's he scored a single blow against the first before he picked up Asuka's fallen spear, whirling around to face them he impaled the second of the two onto the end before forcing it away from him as he rammed his prog knife into the first's 'head'.

Shinji blinked as he found himself flying backwards out into the sea, twisting in mid air he felt his cable suddenly come loose as his timer started.

"Unit 01 running on internal battery, requesting permission to retreat." Shinji pushed himself up off the floor and rushed the Angel's once again, ignoring the still present power cable dragging along the floor, despite it having been severed by the Angels.

"Permission denied Unit 01, continue with attack."

Shinji scowled as he grabbed the end of the spear still impaled into the second of the two Angels and used it to throw the Angel away from him.

Turning to face the other one he reached out and grabbed the hilt of his prog knife and forced it downwards, cutting the Angel open and revealing its S2 organ.

"Ha, found you!" with that he pulled the knife free before forcing it into the Angel's core, cracking it.

He blinked once again only to find his Eva being thrown out into the sea once again, his plug now fading as the Eva's internal power ran out.

(Page Break)

Shinji scowled as he sat itching in his plug suit, still covered in drying LCL having not been allowed to shower; coupled with having to sit through what equated to a bollocking rather than a debriefing meant that he wasn't in a pleasant mood at all, quite the opposite in fact, currently all he wanted to do was have a shower, then work off his anger in the gym, as was starting to become something of a trend after Asuka's arrival.

"Okay, so the UN used an N2 mine on the damn thing, we get the bloody picture! If I'd've been allowed to retreat I'd've been able to renew my attack and disabled at least one of the bloody things!" Shinji had finally had enough, he was irritated, covered in LCL and getting bollocked for being defeated when he was out numbered and running on his internal battery on low power meant he wasn't going to sit through the entire damn thing.

"The problem remains that the Angels are still alive Pilot Ikari, what do you suggest that we do?" The old sub-commander could sympathise with the young pilot, the denial of his request however had been the commander's decision.

"I'd suggest that we reequip the Eva's and attack as soon as possible, with Ayanami also, that way we would be able to defeat the Angels whilst they are not fully regenerated. Also that way we would have a numeric advantage should we need it." The sub-commander considered this possibility only to be interrupted by Ritsuko.

"The repairs to your Evas will take about six days, by that time the Angels will have regenerated. And besides that, what happens if all three Evas are defeated in the battle? The Angels will go unopposed as they destroy humankind."

"The Evas don't need to be fully repaired, just repaired enough to last long enough to retreat should the Angels prove to be too strong; and if all three Evas attack the Angels then there is very little chance that they will be able to defeat us, especially considering the damage I managed to do on my own, and Unit 00 will be undamaged." Shinji countered, waiting for any other comment so that he could hopefully resolve this plan and go have a nice long shower.

"The Evas will take three days to repair most of the damage, fortunately most of the damage is just armour; that should narrow down any problems."

The sub-commander nodded before dismissing the group, leaving himself at a quick pace.

(Page Break)

A blue haired girl watched a young man savagely beat a punch bag, he'd already attacked the weights and treadmill since he'd entered the room and was now working on destroying a punch bag, as she had become accustomed to seeing him do, usually after enduring Pilot Souryu's insults and anger for a long period of time.

"Pilot Ikari?"

Shinji whirled around on one heel and dropped into a ready stance, his fists up but not close enough to his head to be a hindrance to him in a fight, Rei's gaze travelled down him, analyzing the way his feet were far enough apart to offer him a solid base for many throws or kicks.

"I was told you were in charge of our next operation, I wish to understand what I am to do." Shinji eased out of his stance as he finally noted who was approaching him.

"When the repairs to both Unit 01 and 02 are completed to a level where they will be combat effective we will launch all three Eva's against the Angels who should still be recovering from the previous assault, the reason that we're attacking before they fully regenerate is so we should have an advantage." With that Shinji waited for the still Rei to respond to him, only to turn back around to the punch bag when he noticed her complete lack of acknowledgment.

"Pilot Ikari?" Shinji carried his kick onwards as he spun around on his heel once again, accidentally kicking Rei to the floor.

"Ayanami? You okay?"

She looked at him oddly when she noted the concern in his voice, as if he regretted his action severely.

"I am fine Pilot Ikari." Shinji's eyes narrowed slightly at her response, that kick had been enough to wind Aoba and send him to the floor, so he had to have at least winded her, and normally people would at least mention that.

"Are you sure you're alright Ayanami? Maybe you should sit down for awhile; I know Aoba had to last time he got hit with one of those." Rei absently shook her head but moved over to one of the benches and sat down anyway, whilst the blow hadn't particularly hurt her, she found it difficult to catch her breath for a few minutes.

"Feeling better?" Rei looked up at him confused, no one ever paid this much concern over her condition, not even the commander, as she was expendable.

"As I said before, I am fine." Shinji pulled her to her feet before looking her over, stepping away from her before asking.

"Do you know how to defend yourself in a fight?" his frown deepened as she simply stared at him. "I'll take that as a no, maybe we should sort that out, I can't claim to be an expert but I can teach you enough to get by until I find a proper session here."

Rei nodded absently, waiting for his instruction. "If you believe it would be beneficial Sensei."

Whilst Shinji still felt that something in her attitude was slightly off he began to teach her the basics of Jujitsu, from how to punch and kick properly and effectively to breakfalls, before he realised it hours had passed with him having taught her a very solid foundation for her to continue learning.

(Page Break)

Shinji groaned as he slipped into his room, lazily rolling onto his futon only to find someone already laid there, someone who from what he could hear, wasn't particularly best pleased with him being there either.

"Bewegung Badscheiße!" Shinji sat up before glaring at the redhead now laid quite comfortably in what _was_ his bed.

"What the fucking hell are you doing in my room?" Shinji growled, moving so he'd be able to defend himself if he needed to, if there was one thing he'd learned, it was to distrust strangers who appeared like they owned the place.

"What'd you mean _your_ room? This is my room, go sleep somewhere else!" That was all Shinji needed to push him over the edge, not only had she annoyed him during the day now she'd gone and tried to kick him out of his room!

Shinji grabbed the smaller girl by her shoulders, forcefully pulling her out of the bed before dragging her to the door and forcefully throwing her out of his room.

"Like I said before, this is _my damn room_ so stay the hell _out!_" with that said he wrenched the door across and collapsed back onto his bed, launching a pillow at the door as it opened.

Shinji blinked as the pillow dropped to the floor, revealing a slightly confused woman, her long purple hair covered with a towel as she waited for it to dry.

"Sorry Misato-san, I thought it was that damn redheaded bitch back for round two."

She slipped into the room, shutting the door behind her and sitting down next to him as she asked, "Round two?"

"Tried invading my room."

With that Misato nodded before ruffling is hair, "Don't worry about it Shinji, I doubt she'll try again, I think I saw her spitting feathers whilst she stalked towards the spare bedroom."

Shinji gave her the ghost of a smile before he laid back down again and closed his eyes, too tired to even bother stripping off for bed.

Misato smiled herself before slipping back out of the room and heading towards her own room for the night, only to make a detour towards what was the guest room.

(Page Break)

"Asuka, can I have a word a minute?" The girl in question rolled over and looked up at her new guardian, having been oddly transferred from Kaji now that they were here in Japan, and back to her previous guardian Misato, it was something that troubled the redhead, why'd they have to take her away from the one person she cared for was beyond her.

"I suppose so…" Misato stepped into the room, one of her hands pinning the towel together around her body.

"I'm not going to tell you off about trying to take over Shinji's room, I can see he's done that himself; I'm just going to warn you, he might not look like it, but he _does_ have issues, and ones that mean if you piss him off make sure you don't push him over the edge _whatever_ you do, okay? Just promise me you'll not do that." Asuka gave the woman a confused look but agreed to it anyway. "Thank you, and whatever you do, don't ask him about it okay? I mean it. He hasn't told me what happened himself, and I don't want to drag it up, so don't you either."

Asuka sighed as she nodded once again, mentally wondering just what the older woman meant by what she'd said about it being so damn bad when he went finally lost his temper.

Shrugging to herself she lay back down and rolled over, falling asleep within moments.

(Page Break)

"_Heh, now why would I wanna stop sweethart? I'm gonna enjoy this." A lecherous grin spread across the man's face as he pinned a trembling young woman against a cold brick wall, a small glittering flick knife pinned against her bare throat stopping her from moving._

"_Help! Please! Someone!"_

"_Shut it bitch!"_

_A loud crack of flesh striking flesh filled the alley and spilled out onto the soaked street, the few people out on the street either not hearing or not caring about the young woman's screams._

_A young teen frowned as he heard the panicked cries of the young woman, darting towards the mouth of the alley, only to stop in horror at the scene before him._

_**Anger**_

_A bubbling rage filled in the teen, making him dive at the man, one of his fists lashing out at his kidneys whilst a foot swept his nearest foot out from underneath him._

_**Pain**_

_He collapsed to the floor as blood began to soak through his now torn t-shirt, blood weeping from a ragged cut running down his chest._

_**Defeat**_

_He curled up around the foot that slammed into his ribs, a sickening crack sounding filling the alley._

_**Refusal**_

_He slowly forced himself to his feet as the man turned back to the young woman, tearing open her soaked shirt with his bare hands._

_**Anger**_

_The teen picked up the discarded knife before standing behind the man and stabbing the blade into his back, ripping it free before stabbing it in once again, this time higher in the man's back._

_**Anger**_

_He pinned the man to the floor, wrapping his hands in his hair and using it to slam the man's head against the slick concrete floor._

_**Death**_

_He let go of the man's hair as blood began to stream out around him, the matted hair and lumps of what he thought was shattered bone stuck to the rain-soaked floor._

_**Acceptance**_

_He slowly moved off the man, giving the woman a weak smile as he stumbled to the end of the alleyway, collapsing as he reached its mouth._

_**Hope**_

_Everything faded slowly to black as he looked up at the worried face above him, her beauty marred by an ugly black mark on her face and her tear stained cheeks._

(Page Break)

Shinji's eyes fluttered open, a fine layer of sweat soaking both his skin and the sheets; one hand tentatively reaching up to trace the scar across his chest.

Pushing himself out of the bed he stumbled over to the bathroom, catching himself on the sink he stared at himself in the mirror for a moment before driving his fist through his reflection.

(Page Break)

Misato blinked as she stumbled into the bathroom, rubbing the sleep form her eyes as she headed to take her morning shower, she found the large mirror missing from the wall, several bloodstains present in what would've been the middle of the mirror.

Turning around she walked back out of the bathroom, heading back into the kitchen and this time noticing the large white bandage wrapped around Shinji's left hand, getting in the way of his cooking slightly.

"Um, Shinji?" The young man turned to look at her over his shoulder, making no effort to disguise the bandaged hand from her. "Any idea what happened to the bathroom mirror?"

He frowned for a moment before speaking. "Oh that, it shattered when I put my hand against it last night; the floor is clear right? Couldn't get the bloodstain off the tiles though, I'll give it a try again later."

She nodded slowly, idly wondering why the hell he hadn't woken her up to help him.

Opening her mouth to ask him she found him already answering her.

"I didn't think about it, I'm used to living on my own remember? Anyway, don't worry about it, breakfast's ready." With that said he turned around and started to serve the food up.

(Page Break)

Maya frowned as she noticed the bandage wrapped tightly around Shinji's left hand, her mind mulling over all the possibilities before it kept coming back to one.

Sighing she turned back to her station, continuing to mull over his bandaged hand as she worked, only to be nudged by Aoba.

"Take a break, we can handle things for awhile, if you're that worried go ask him about it." The long haired tech gave her a small smirk before he finished. "Besides, I'm sure the good doc can understand you worrying about your _boyfriend_."

Maya flushed at the teasing, before getting up and motioning to Ritsuko that she'd be back in a few minutes. With the good doctor's approval she left the room and headed towards the pilot's changing rooms, where she knew he should be changing for the sync test.

(Page Break)

Shinji sighed as he folded his t-shirt roughly, dropping it onto the locker's shelf before placing his chain atop it, grabbing one of the plug suits that hung there he started to roughly pull it on, fastening the light metal breastplate together at his side once he was finished, before removing the left glove from the suit, dropping it on the bench he turned around to leave.

He stopped still.

Slowly Shinji wrapped his arms around the woman hugging him, her head resting lightly against his chest.

"Hey Maya." Idly he ran a hand through her long hair, kissing the top of her head softly as she tightened the embrace.

"Shinji-kun."

He chuckled at her before moving to sit down on the bench, tugging her into his lap as he did so. He brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear as she looked up at him, bringing the bandage into her view once again.

She wrapped a hand around his wrist before moving it gently before her.

"What happened to your hand?" her voice asked, tiny and tinged with a hint of fear.

He gave a smile before kissing her lightly.

"I just cut it on some broken glass, the mirror in Misato's bathroom broke and I was clearing it up, nothing to worry about." She nodded before slowly unwrapping it, wincing as she was the network of scabs covering his hand, before turning his hand over and finding none on his palm.

"Shinji-kun, please…" she let the question trail off, wrapping the arm around herself again as she snuggled into him.

He didn't answer her unspoken question; instead he pulled her closer into his embrace.

"You had a flashback didn't you?"

No reply.

She pulled away from him so she could face him.

"You did didn't you? Please, don't shut me out! Please Shinji-kun! Talk to me!"

His gaze wavered, before he totally collapsed under her gaze.

"I did, it was from that night…" he started to shiver slightly as he remembered, curling up into Maya's chest as she wrapped her arms around him, gently kissing his neck as she felt his shivering form.

The two stayed like that for a few minutes, neither wanting to break the moment.

(Page Break)

"Asuka, concentrate harder, your sync ratio is erratic." The redhead sighed; trying to ignore the unease the LCL was suddenly creating in her and focus on linking her mind to the Eva. "That's better, it's stable now but still a little low compared to last time."

Asuka growled at the tech, sorely tempted to remind him just _why_ she was known to some as the 'Red Devil'.

"It's Shinji's fault, he did something when he was in here and it just doesn't _feel_ right anymore, like I'm missing something!" she ground out, annoyed at the fact that the damn third child not only had a higher body count with less training, but he also had a higher rank than her.

"We've not detected anything. It must be your imagination."

Asuka growled as she thought of Shinji, she hadn't seen him when she'd gotten into the plug and the fact that his little _Maya-san_ wasn't overseeing the test meant that they were probably off somewhere in one of the _many_ storage rooms, hell, they could even be in the male pilots changing rooms and no one would bat an eyelid, 'after all, he _is_ the only male pilot…' she reasoned.

"Your ratio's become erratic again Asuka. Go get changed, we'll reschedule the test."

Asuka tried not to smile as she got out of the plug, glad to be out of the LCL and the Eva mock-up.

(Page Break)

"Hey Shinji, you still wanna do the test today? We've rescheduled Asuka for after the battle because she's having trouble maintaining her sync ratio at a steady level, so we could do the same for yours if you want." Shinji shook his head at Aoba's question, considering he was already suited up and here he figured he might as well get it out of the way while he could.

"Nah, I'll do it now, might as well get it out of the way now." With that said he hopped into the plug and waited for them to start the test.

(Page Break)

"Doc, come and have a look at these readings, I've never seen anything like it, he's syncing _way_ higher than either Rei or Asuka, hell, with readings like these I wouldn't be surprised if he could _juggle_ with those Angel's tomorrow, I mean damn, he's got a natural reading of 64.3 but in his plug suit that goes up to somewhere around 85.6. Wait, sync ratio is rising!"

A startled cry flew over the room from a tech on the far side of the room.

"Unit 01 is activating! There's no entry plug inserted but the pattern is Shinji's! He's broken through the separation block!"

Ritsuko closed her eyes and frowned as she heard the report, moments before the sound of Unit 01 pulling itself free of its restraints reached her ears along with the terrified shouts of the techs working on restoring it.

"End the test, cut synchronisation!"

"Test aborted! Pilot is no longer synchronised!"

"Unit 01 silent! Block restored!"

Ritsuko grabbed rubbed the bridge of her nose as she walked out of the room, mentally damning the young man for his ability to perform whenever the odds were against him.

(Page Break)

"Hey Shinji!"

Shinji blinked as a pair of warm arms wrapped around his bare chest, pulling him against a soft, warm body.

"Maya-san?" Shinji felt the woman plant a soft kiss on his neck and turned around to face her. "So, what's up? I heard a lot of panicking before they shut off the test, something about Unit 01 but I didn't catch it all."

Maya smiled at him before shaking her head.

"That doesn't matter, what does matter is if you fancy playing a few rounds in the Magi's systems, we've not really got anything we can do besides watch the Magi, and we can do that from the game, so, you in?"

Shinji gave her a curious look.

"In the Magi? What'd you mean, like VR or something?" He blinked as she beamed at him.

"Yup got it in one, so, you in?"

He nodded.

(Page Break)

Shinji ducked around the corner, taking note of the dark shadows and the smell of damp that dominated this level, neatly bringing up his pistol as he did so, he'd learnt early on that spinning out around the corner got you killed easily, especially against the Bridge techs; silently he advanced along the dimly light hall only to groan as he felt a heavy thud on his back. The hall slowly faded into a neatly furnished waiting room, though still dominated by the darkness that permitted the rest of the level.

"So she got you too?"

Shinji idly noted the death notice on his HUD before nodding.

"You mean Maya? I figured she'd be good but damn, how often does she play?" he asked as he turned around, his eyes coming to rest on Maya's other co-worker, Makoto Hyuga, sat lounging in one of the chairs, the helmet of his armour lay at his feet, a deep velvety purple to match the rest of his outfit, a skin tight affair similar to a plug suit only with heavily plated shoulders and arms, several white stud like plates covering it.

"I've seen that suit somewhere before…" Shinji noted, pulling off his own helmet, removing the HUD from his view.

"Zone of Enders 2, Dingo Egret. Shigeru's running around as Nohman and I think Misato's running around as Ken; unless Maya's changed she should be running around as Rose from Metal Gear, she's been on about getting you to play as Raiden but you don't have enough of a baby face so that wouldn't work…"

Shinji blinked.

"Do you guys all cosplay or…"

"Damn it! I fucking had her!"

"Hey Shigeru, Maya get you too?"

Shinji turned as Aoba stepped forwards, to his right, ripping his white helmet free and launching it against the wall, a long tail-like appendage snatching it out of the air as it bounced back towards him.

"I was this close form getting her too!" He gestured with his thumb and forefinger leaving about an inch between them.

"Yeah, yeah, you always say that…"

"Oh come on, like you're any better, you keep letting Ken off, just because she's your girlfriend doesn't mean you have to let her off, hell, look at Maya with Shinji, the poor guy hasn't even been given a chance to run! He's got like one shot off at her in the entire thing!"

"Two shots." Shinji corrected. "One of them missed."

"Okay two shots." Shigeru relented, "Still doesn't mean that Makoto has to _let_ Ken kill him."

Makoto shot up, a blade snapping forwards on his forearm that wasn't there a split second before.

Shigeru smirked as the blade hit his newly created long-staff; twisting his tail up to jab Makoto in the ribs.

Shinji stepped back and pumped three rounds into Shigeru, killing him whilst Makoto rebounded off the walls and darted towards Shinji with his arm-blade, only to find a gauntleted hand deflecting the blade and a knee crushing his throat.

Shinji dropped to the floor as he saw a small bolt of metal pound its way out of his chest before imbedding itself in the wall.

He looked up at his helmet facing him as he lay on the floor, the backwards death notice reading;

'You were killed by Misato.'

(Page Break)

Shinji winced as he opened his eyes, finding himself staring up into an overhead light, its glaring white light near blinding to his unfocused eyes.

"Hey Shinji, have fun?" He groaned at the cheer in the voice, he felt like he'd been run over by Misato again and Asuka had taken up residence in his head.

"Headache."

"Should die down in a few minutes, and you got the short straw with the light I'm afraid, doesn't help with it being your first time." He heard a low chuckle from Shigeru as he caught onto some sort of hidden meaning.

"We'll show you a few tricks next time, see you later, I'm heading home." With that Makoto left, a shorter blond woman jogging after him, an indignant squawk echoing back into the room as she caught up with him, probably as she complained about being left behind.

"Well, I've got a hot date with a Linux server, so I'm out, later guys!" Shigeru called over his shoulder as he walked out, his NERV issue uniform jacket draped over his shoulder.

Shinji slowly got to his feet, letting out a slight gasp as he felt a pair of hands start to slowly massage his shoulders.

Looking back for a moment he let out a long groan of pleasure as his tightly knotted muscles were worked loose by a skilled pair of hands.

"Glad you're enjoying it Shinji-kun, Andi's quite good at massages isn't see? I keep telling her she should open up her own place but she always says she's better off here at NERV."

Shinji nearly purred when she slowly pulled her hands away, his body feeling like new after the short massage, forcing himself to focus he stood up and stretched his legs, having been laid in the same position for too long.

"Thanks, I mean that, seriously, I feel a hell of lot better than I did before, you aught to get your own place really, you'd make a mint." Shinji honestly stated, smiling at the young blond stood behind him, she looked to be slightly older than Maya, though at least a few year younger than Makoto and Shigeru, probably no older than about twenty two he'd guess.

"I'm gonna be heading off myself, I'll see you all tomorrow!" Shinji waved as he left the room, before starting to jog away from the room, reorientating himself to his body much like he sometimes had to after being in the Eva simulators.

(Page Break)

The next day flew by as a blur to Shinji, as he spent most of the day soaking in the information that they had on the pair of Angels that had appeared, whilst they didn't have that much information on the Angels the majority was various theories that they had come up with, including everything from what they believed were their attack capabilities to how they theorised they worked in tandem.

Eventually he found himself laid down on one of the couches in the nearest rec. room to the briefing room, his hands tucked behind his head as he stared at the ceiling, its bland white paint having started to fade to a smoky yellow, the still smouldering cigarette that lay abandoned in the ashtray attested to its frequent use as a smoke room rather than an ordinary rec. room.

Shinji blinked as another cigarette joined the now extinct butt in the ashtray, tapping the cherry off as the blond doctor glanced at her watch, before marching out, absently crumpling up the now empty packet and tossing it towards the empty bin, ignoring it as it bounced and rolled away, coming to a stop a few feet away from the bin.

He sat up as a girl who closely resembled an albino walked into the room, the single reason that she couldn't be called an albino was her pale blue hair, natural pale blue hair at that, it was a feature he'd only ever seen on the girl.

"Sensei?" Shinji blinked at her tone, it was oddly tinged with what sounded like concern.

"Ayanami? What is it?" he asked as he sat up, stretching his shoulders as he did so, his bare arms a fair few shades darker than Rei's own.

"I wish to inquire as to your present state of health." Her clumsy language caused Shinji to let out a small chuckle.

"You mean 'Are you okay?' I'm fine Ayanami, just a feeling a little brain dead after that briefing session."

Rei blinked at him before opening her mouth to say something, only to be interrupted.

"It's a figure of speech Ayanami, it means that I'm still trying to sort everything they said out and I'm bored."

She nodded before standing still for a moment, her features in a light frown as she thought.

"I wish to spar with you Sensei."

Her request mildly surprised Shinji, as when she had first met him in the gym she had little care for her own health, it had taken him drilling it in during their lesson that she was irreplaceable, just as everyone else on the planet was, though the world was a better place without a fair few of them.

"Okay, but we should head over to the gym, and probably change into something slightly more suitable, considering a school uniform isn't really the best thing to spar in, wouldn't want to rip it now would we?" He rolled his eyes as Rei looked at him blankly, having been raised mainly by his farther hadn't been good for teaching her about socialising, or living in general for that matter.

(Page Break)

Shinji slid into a loose stance; his feet shoulder width apart, his weight evenly balanced between the two whilst his arms curled up into a loose guard, positioned to block any incoming attacks whilst being able to launch them himself.

Rei slid into a mirror of Shinji's stance, her right side leading her as opposed to Shinji's left; she'd changed into a loose fitting pair of tracksuit bottoms and a loose t-shirt, having appropriated them from the gym's spares.

Shinji lashed out with his left once he was sure Rei was ready, before pulling it back and striking with a right cross, only to find Rei stepping outside of the blow, using her foot to sweep out one of his own from under him.

Shinji dropped into a roll, gathering himself to his feet before lashing out with a quick snap kick before shifting his weight forwards and launching himself into a roundhouse kick.

He pulled his foot back as the blow bounced off Rei's forearm, her block hading stopped the blow dead, he caught her wrist as she shot a jab towards him, throwing her over his shoulder stepping back as she blinked, having found herself laid on her back suddenly, looking up at the plain white ceiling.

"You okay?" Rei nodded as she got to her feet, sliding back into a loose stance, before catching him under the jaw with a high kick.

Shinji set his jaw as he recovered from the blow, tightening his stance before rushing her, grabbing her shoulders and pushing her backwards when he swept her feet out from beneath her, letting go as she fell to the floor before pinning her down and keeping his head low enough so she couldn't wrap her feet around his throat.

"Give up yet?" Rei squirmed beneath him, trying desperately to wrap her legs around his throat, but he was sitting just a little bit too low on her waist for her to do so.

She eventually stilled before sighing, having resigned herself to the loss.

Shinji shifted and stood up, only to find himself staring up at the blue haired young woman he'd pinned not moments earlier; he arched his back and forced Rei to slide off him, only to end up with his head stuck in a rather awkward position.

Rei looked down at him oddly for a few moments before moving, taking a breath as she tried to still her rapid breathing and cool the blush that'd spread across her cheeks.

'_Apparently the commander _did_ tell her about some things…at least Maya didn't see that, she'd kill me…_' Shinji chuckled slightly at that thought before getting to his feet, waiting to see Rei's reaction before speaking.

"I think that's enough sparring for now, well, I'm gonna get going Ayanami, I'll see you tomorrow." With that he strolled out of the room when she nodded at him, before she headed out herself, probably to the pilot changing rooms to shower.

(Page Break)

Shinji consciously evened out his breathing, forcing his mind to calm despite the coming battle, his Eva had been deployed along he edge of the crater and left on life support mode whilst they connected the power cable, along with both Asuka in Unit 02 and Rei in Unit 00 he found himself itching to start the battle, his mind already formulating new battle ideas.

'_That's it! I'll have Asuka and Rei attack the orange one whilst I take on the grey one._'

He smirked as he felt the Eva shift over from life support when the cable started to supply power, moving it down the wall of the crater he called the order over the comm. to the other two pilots.

He charged the grey Angel, pointing the barrel of his rifle at its body and emptying the clip into it.

He caught a glimpse of Rei and Asuka impaling their target onto the end of their spears, releasing their grip as they started to hack away with their prog. knives.

He dropped his rifle before drawing his own knife and hacking away at the Angel's arm, moving to work on one of its legs when the arm fell free. It lashed out with its arm at the same time that its twin did, Shinji ducked under the arm as he called out, "They're synced, try and break their sync and we can beat them!"

He finished hacking the Angel's leg off before he started hacking away at its downed body, carving it open until he could see its cracked S2 organ, dropping his knife he grabbed the core with both hands and ripped it free, before kicking the downed and now dead Angel a few times before stepping away from its still form.

"See if you can rip the S2 organ out, maybe we can use them for something!"

His eyes came back to rest on a downed Unit 00 and a battered Unit 02.

"Need any help over there?"

Asuka's face popped up to the left of his view, just out of the way enough so he could focus on his zoomed window of the remaining Angel.

"Like hell I need help!" A smirk overcame her features as she ripped the flawless core free of the Angel's body, before stepping away from the rapidly stilling corpse.

She cried out in fear as her Eva's jaw broke free of its restraints, showing newly generated teeth as the power cable ejected itself, the remote command having been issued as soon as Ritsuko recognised the readings as the same ones they'd monitored during Unit 00's original activation test.

Shinji watched as Unit 02's power port slid free of its back, followed by a large mass of circuitry and wiring wrapped around a long grey cylinder that Shinji imagined to be the Eva's internal battery. His suspicions were confirmed when he heard Maya's shout over his open link to NERV's Tokyo 3 HQ.

"This is Ikari, orders?"

Silence permitted for a few seconds whilst Unit 02 ripped the armour covering its stomach off, the very skin and muscles parting to make room for the S2 organ it was about to ingest.

"Pilot Ikari, stop Unit 02 from accepting the S2 organ, destroy it if you have to."

Shinji blinked at the cold voice that responded, knowing that the older Ikari had meant both the S2 organ and Unit 02 when he'd spoken.

"Unit 01 moving to engage." Shinji charged as he spoke, having swapped the damaged S2 organ for his prog knife a few moments earlier.

Shinji stopped dead as a sandstorm picked up around Unit 02 with enough sand to make him think twice about rushing in despite the ridiculous amount of armour that his Unit was covered in.

"Unit 01, break off your attack, Unit 02 has just ingested the organ, wait out for orders."

"Command, Unit 02 has a language buffer that the pilot synchronizes with instead of the Eva right?" A small image flickered to life where his video feed had been from Unit 02's plug only minutes earlier, the familiar face of the blond doctor's face appearing.

"If you have a plan spit it out or shut up!" she snapped, her features stretched across her face as she continued to run plans through her head.

"If we can get that disabled Asuka might be able to get the Eva offline or at least bring it under control."

"She's never synced directly to an Eva before; it could be too much for her."

"Then we're no better off than we are now! Tell me how to disable it and I'll relay the info once I get in touch with her."

"She just needs to rip out the console behind her head, that's the language buffer, after that it's up to her."

(Page Break)

Asuka cried in terror as she felt the entry plug shift as the Eva reorganised its body to accommodate its new S2 organ.

_Asuka_

She looked around for the source of the voice only to ask tenitively, "Shinji? Is that you?"

_Yeah, it's me, listen, you need to rip out the console behind your head and force the Eva to stop._

Asuka turned to look at the console in question before asking, "How the fuck am I supposed to do that HellerFunke?"

_Use your fucking hands damn it!_

"What?"

_Either that or I gut you when this sand dies down, now do it!_

Frantic she turned and tried to grab hold of the console's front, failing miserably as her hands scrabbled over its smooth surface.

Panicking as Shinji's ultimatum rang through her mind she drove her elbow into the console's front, the weak plastic shattering under the force of the blow despite the LCL surrounding her that should slow her movements.

Her hands made short work of the console as she ripped out its innards, leaving them to float around her in the LCL once she was finished gutting the unit.

Her eyes widened as she saw the sandstorm around her finish dieing down, the tons of suspended sand dropping to the floor.

(Page Break)

Shinji smirked as he saw the sandstorm die down, the Eva contained within suddenly darkening as it deactivated, having succumbed to the pilot's will.

"Command this is Ikari, Unit 02 has deactivated, send retrieval team."

"Understood Ikari, retrieval team en route. ETA fifteen minutes." Shinji relaxed in his seat and switched the Eva over to standby mode, closing his eyes and settling into a light doze.

(Page Break)

Asuka shivered as she found herself sat inside a darkened entry plug, the LCL surrounding her beginning to progressively feel cooler against her exposed skin.

'(Damn idiot)' she thought, wrapping herself up into a tighter ball, burying her face in her arms. '(Why's he have to make me so damn weak?)'

A memory shifted to the forefront of her mind, causing her to yelp as it assailed her mind.

'(No! Leave me alone!)' she shivered as the memory faded from her mind once again, leaving her to cry alone in the empty plug.

(Page Break)

"Hey, Shinji, wake up!" Shinji slowly opened his eyes, finding himself looking up into a pair of deep brown orbs, framed by long brown hair running down either side of her face.

"Maya-san?" he smiled and wrapped his arms around her, before looking sheepish as he noticed the large stain now present on her uniform. "Heh, sorry!"

"At least it's just my uniform." She replied, idly stripping off the top and discarding it to one side, seeming to not even notice she now only had a bra covering her 'assets'.

"Anyway, think you're up for a little celebrating later? Shigeru and Makoto are after going out and celebrating, you wanna come with us?"

Shinji nodded slowly before asking, "Where to? Because you know I'm not old enough to buy beer, so that rules out a pub unless of course you had somewhere else in mind?" Maya smiled slyly at him before leaning over him.

"Aww, but Shinji, you wouldn't want to ruin all the fun would you? Besides, I think they can bend the rules a bit for an Eva pilot, they do in America for soldiers after all."

Shinji nodded again slowly, somewhat unsure where this was leading, but at the same time he didn't really care, right now he just wanted to relax and enjoy life, and going out and getting drunk with his co-workers seemed like a good idea.

"Good, now come on, we're going shopping!" He blinked before his face suddenly drained of all colour.

"Shopping?" He asked weakly, now almost cowering under the plain white sheets covering him.

"Shopping!"

(Page Break)

Shinji collapsed weakly against the bench, setting the numerous bags he'd accumulated down around him, almost cringing at the sheer volume he could see, and he knew that Maya still had a few bags with her; idly he wondered just how much money she'd spent over the last few hours, once again grateful that he'd _somehow_ managed to forget his wallet.

He blinked as a cone of ice-cream appeared in the middle of his view.

"Here you go!"

He plucked the cone out of the air with one hand before smiling slightly.

"Thanks Maya-kun."

Maya smiled sweetly at him before giving him a quick peck on the cheek.

"Well, you'll just have to make it up to me later won't you?" she giggled before leaning over and taking a lick of his ice-cream.

Shinji slyly poked her in the ribs before taking a quick lick of hers, her laughter tinkling in his ears as it soon turned into an all out war between the two.

(Page break)

Shinji casually walked into the bar, one of his arms wrapped around Maya's waist whilst the other had worked its way into his left pocket, idly resting on his wallet.

"Hey man, good to see you came! I was wondering if you were gonna show up!" Shinji smirked at Shigeru as he approached their table, already he could see the glasses starting to pile up, one of the bar staff already collecting the empties.

"This is me Shig; I live with a woman who has the constitution of a half-Irish half-Russian Sailor, why would I turn down a drink?" Shinji's smirk widened at Shigeru's expression, before settling into the seat next to him, letting Maya go and sit with the other women in the group, the men leaving them to gossip to their hearts content.

Later on in the night Shinji found someone roughly push him from behind, forcing him away from the counter and nearly into a nearby table.

"Oi! Watch it!" he shouted at the man, ignoring him as he walked back over to the bar, only to find the man staring at him. "Yeah what? You got a problem?"

The man sneered at Shinji before snapping in reply, "Yeah I've got a problem you little shit, you. Now fuck off before I knock seven shades of shit outta ya!"

"Let me explain something to you knucklehead, you see those three suits at the back of the room, they're my security detail, now either you shut the fuck up and get your fucking drink, or you can swing for me and wind up in a cell. Your call."

The man grabbed his pint glass and slumped off, apparently defeated.

Shinji turned as he felt someone's eyes on him, noticing Maya's questioning look he gave her a smile and a wave before he picked up their drinks and walked back over to the table.

About an hour later Shinji felt someone stand behind him as he buttoned up his fly, turning around he found it was the same man from before, except this time with a friend.

"What?"

"Yeah, this is the one alright Frank, what'd'ya say we teach him a lesson?"

"Yeah what the hell, it'll be awhile before they notice he's missing."

"Maybe I didn't explain this properly to you, the security detail is because I work for NERV, the only reason they're there is to make sure I don't accidentally kill half-wits like you two fuck-ups. Now piss off before you get hurt!" Shinji growled, already shifting into a fighting stance, his hands clenching as his face curled into a snarl.

The first man's arm came at Shinji slowly, a definite sign of his inebriated state.

Shinji simply grabbed the hand and launched the man over his shoulder using a simple throw, before giving him a good kick in the ribs to keep him down before looking at the second and clearly more sober man and pointing at the downed man.

"You really wanna end up like that?" Shinji nodded at him when he shook his head slowly. "Good."

With that said Shinji left the toilets and returned to his companions for the rest of the night.

(Page Break)

Shinji's eyes snapped open when he felt someone shift next to him, two warm bodies curled up against him.

He looked around the room, trying to ignore the throbbing headache that'd formed at the back of his head; idly he noted that he once again had no clue where he was, but with the amount of times it'd happened to him since he'd come to Tokyo 3 it was almost mundane now.

"…mmm…Shinji? What're you doing in my bed?" He sat in stunned silence as the blond to his right trailed a hand up his chest before giggling and slipping off the bed, idly pulling on a clean white t-shirt before walking out of the room, stepping over Shigeru's fallen body before disappearing out of his view.

Shinji shifted uncomfortably as Maya stirred next to him, pressing her naked form against his own.

'_What the hell happened last night? I can understand waking up next to Maya, but why the hell did I wake up next to Andi too?_' Shinji found himself purring as a pair of soft warm lips pressed themselves against his neck; apparently he'd managed to wake Maya up with his thoughts.

"…Don't worry about it Shinji-kun, she stumbled in here awhile ago, she forgot we were in here…" Shinji shifted to face her as she spoke, one of her hands idly tracing the scar on his chest.

"We should get up soon; I really don't want Misato sending out Section Two because I'm not in my room with a hangover after last night." He shifted out of the embrace before gathering up his scattered clothes, throwing Maya's to her as he found them.

(Page Break)

Shinji blinked as he stepped into the apartment, somewhat amazed at the scent of cooking bacon and eggs reached him, idly he looked around for the burnt offerings and telltale black smoke that accompanied Misato's cooking on the few times he'd let her cook since he moved in, he shuddered as he remembered the last dish nearly getting up and _walking_ off his plate after he'd found it in the fridge.

"Kaji? That you?" a cheerful voice called from the kitchen, quickly followed by an ecstatic redhead, her blue eyes falling as they came to rest on the older teen, his hair having been left out of its usual style fell around his face in a similar manner to her own.

"Oh, it's just you, have you seen Kaji?" she asked, her voice now subdued as she walked back into the kitchen, carrying on with her cooking.

"No, sorry I've not seen him, have you called him? He might just be stuck in traffic." Shinji offered, slipping his shoes off before taking Maya's jacket and draping it over the back of a nearby chair whilst he just threw his own into his room, blinking when he heard a feminine groan as it landed on his bed.

"What's…?" Shinji trailed off when a head of blond hair popped out of his bed, her eyes peering out into the bright morning light. He just turned away from the girl and walked into the bathroom, idly rooting for something to get rid of his headache, having finally had enough of it.

"Shinji?" Asuka asked curiously as she noticed him randomly walk into the bathroom and start rooting for something.

"Hangover. Too much beer." Was his simple response as he continued rooting, finally pulling out a box only to shove it back in the cabinet, repeating the procedure several times before finally finding what he was looking for.

"You should've said, we could've stopped by a chemist's on the way here." Maya shifted her weight to one foot as she pointed it out, simply not seeing the point in putting up with being in pain when you didn't have to be.

"I was waiting to see if it'd go away, no point in popping pills if I don't need to, besides, with the amount I've been having since I got here I'm better off going without." He called back after knocking back two of the pills dry.

Both women blinked at this, before a smooth voice called out from the now open front door. "Hey ladies, have a good time last night?"

Maya blushed slightly at the question, remembering just what _had_ happened once they'd disappeared into Andi's room the previous night.

"Yeah, hope you're not too hung over though Kaji, I'd hate for you to miss breakfast." Asuka beamed, automatically tucking her hair behind her ears before pulling him into the kitchen to eat before splitting the remainder between Maya and Shinji.

(Page Break)

Shinji leaned back in his seat, remembering the past week as little more than a blur, idly wondering if the sudden flurry of activity yesterday had been due to the next angel being discovered or if they were all preparing for some big event that he didn't know about, idly he remembered that the second Jet Alone trial was soon, granted he was sure it wouldn't be that generating so much activity but barring the discovery of another Angel he had no idea what it could be besides.

He scowled as the console before him bleeped, apparently the program he was running had performed and illegal operation and would be shut down.

'_The city's run by three supercomputers with human personalities but I'm still stuck using Windows 98 at school, that isn't retarded is it? No…_' he bit sarcastically, idly smacking the side of the tower under his desk with his boot. '_I mean come on; _I_ could probably code something better than this piece of shit!_'

He booted it again for good measure as it rebooted.

(Page Break)

Asuka sighed as she walked over to the killer suits that'd been sent to pick both herself and Shinji up from school, Rei having been not unusually absent once again.

She twitched when she noticed her fellow pilot was headed towards the main road with the other two stooges.

"Oi! Shinji!" Shinji ducked out of the crowd as he heard the shout, promptly disappearing form her sight.

Asuka frowned slightly before scanning around for the speaker, before snapping "Fine, whatever, let's go! Let the Bastard make his own way there!"

With that she whirled around and got in the car, heavily slamming the door shut.

(Page Break)

Shinji blinked when he found himself quickly bailing out of the crowd, automatically heading in the opposite direction from it, making sure to slip through several back-alleys he'd learned during his stay so far.

He frowned when he found himself halfway up the fire escape to Maya's apartment, wondering why these buildings even had them, the state of the art fire prevention and protection systems employed in the buildings were so advanced that a simple fire escape became redundant except as a liability during an Angel attack.

He shrugged before finishing his climb, shoving the door open inwards on its double hinge before heading towards the stairwell; anyone purposely following him would've lost him by now for sure.

(Page Break)

"Hey, Maya-chan, you haven't seen Shinji-kun around anywhere have you?" Maya blinked as she felt the arms wrapped around her waist, a long mop of lavender hair falling into view as the overly familiar Captain.

"Sorry Misato-san, I've not seen Shinji-kun today, but I thought he had tests scheduled for today." Maya shivered as Misato sighed, she lingered for a few moments before she let go of the younger woman and slumped into the seat next to her.

"He does, thing is, he just ran off when Asuka shouted to him earlier, and Section 2 can't find him." Maya watched the sullen Captain hunch forwards in her seat, running a hand through her thick lavender locks.

"Hey." Both women jumped at the voice, turning around and swatting the offending man for startling them.

"Where the hell have you been? You were supposed to be here half an hour ago!" Shinji visibly flinched at Misato's tone, automatically taking a step back and slouching slightly. "Forget it. Go get suited up and head over to your Eva, we're moving out soon, you'll be debriefed on site."

With that, the young man in question turned around and started to jog towards the pilot's changing rooms.

(Page Break)

Shinji grunted as he was thrown against the seat once again, his Eva having shifted _again_ inside the transport, he imagined that by the time he'd gotten to the OP head have to deal with an Eva sized headache.

"For Fuck's sake! Either fill the bastard plug or let me the fuck outta this fucking thing!" he planted a booted foot against the top of the entry plug and shifted in his seat, reaching around for the manual fill switch, his hand coming up short each time he reached for it. "Come on…" he moaned before his fingers finally yanked it forwards. "Ha-ha!"

Shifting into his normal piloting position he forcefully emptied his lungs, taking in a deep breath of the LCL before closing his eyes and settling into a light doze.

(Page Break)

"Pilot Ikari; do you understand your orders?"

Shinji nodded over the video link before returning his mind to monitoring the various displays he'd brought up on his HUD to monitor Unit 02's status over the mission.

"Begin operation."

He frowned as he noticed a slight blip on one of the monitors; opening a private link to Unit 02 he lowered the connection between her and the Eva's skin, before scrolling a message across her HUD notifying her of the change.

Idly Shinji watched the monitors and listened to the general operations chatter as he waited for the operation to finish.

'It's a simple mission,' he mused 'what could go wrong? Oh shit, I've just invoked Murphy's law.' He turned his eyes back to the monitors, now doubly alert.

His eyes widened as he noticed a rapidly approaching shape in the lava.

(Page Break)

"Asuka incoming, 12 o' clock high." Asuka shifted to look at Shinji's call only to find a tenticled mouth latching onto Unit 02's head in a feat only matched in one of the pre-second impact Alien films.

"Oh shit!"

Dropping the EM Cage she grabbed her Prog' knife and arced it around into the back of the Angel's head, trying to 'convince' it to let the fuck go.

"Damn it! The knife's useless!" she shrieked as she repeatedly tried top stab it into the back of the Angel's head, each blow failing to pierce the diamond-like hide.

(Page Break)

"Command, we need a combat solution. Unit 02's only weapon is useless." Shinji ground out over his link to the temporary command centre they'd set up for the operation.

His eyes flashed across to the window he'd left open to monitor the coolant system for errors. 'Right arm? Wait, that might work!'

"Asuka, spray the Angel with the coolant and attack the cooled area, the cable on your right arm's already been severed." He supplied helpfully, the simplistic idea behind the attack was the same one he'd struggled to answer in a test a few weeks earlier in science, whilst he understood most of what he'd been taught, he just couldn't see why it worked like that.

He watched as the Angel began to disintegrate, the coolant proving a more than adequate weapon against the Angel in this environment.

_Coolant and support cables severed._

"Shit!"

(Page Break)

The ground crews watched in morbid fascination as Eva Unit 01 stepped forwards and swan dived into the boiling hot lava, regardless of the complete lack of safety gear and the very real danger of Shinji being boiled alive in the very LCL that allowed him to sync with his Eva.

They all stood for a moment in stunned silence that _someone_ would be willing to jump into an active volcano for _anyone_ even if they were both piloting the most advanced piece of military hardware on the planet.

Misato blinked as Shigeru dropped a pin.

Maya launched herself at him.

And everyone else blurred into motion, bellowing status reports at the current head of operations, forcing her to catch up at a massive pace.

(Page Break)

Asuka let out a sigh as she resigned herself to her fate; both the support cable and the coolant cables had been severed by the Angel's final attack, leaving her to fall towards the core of the earth and simple disintegrate as the Angel had under the immense heat and pressure.

She pulled herself back up into a sitting position when the world suddenly stopped around her, looking up she found herself staring into a pair of glowing eyes.

"…Shinji…"

AN: Third chapter finished, _finally_. This one took a little longer for me to finish, but I'm happy with the end result.

Omake:

Shinji's eyes snapped open when he felt someone shift next to him, two warm bodies curled up against him.

He looked around the room, trying to ignore the throbbing headache that'd formed at the back of his head; idly he noted that he once again had no clue where he was, but with the amount of times it'd happened to him since he'd come to Tokyo 3 it was almost mundane now.

"…mmm…Shinji? So that wasn't a dream?" He sat in stunned silence as the blond to his right trailed a hand up his chest before giggling and slipping one of her legs over his waist, straddling him.

Shinji shifted uncomfortably as Maya stirred next to him, pressing her naked form against his own.

"We've been bad, _bad_ little girls Shinji-kun, and we need to be punished." Shinji's nose exploded in a shower of blood when Maya wiggled her eyebrows at him suggestively.


	4. Chapter 4

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Remastered

By Death 12

Chapter 4

Shinji set his jaw as his teeth clashed together, reinforcing his aim mentally he felt his Eva respond to the desire to hold steady, he could _feel_ the strain the arms were under as he compared the force he was pushing against, which was only marginally stronger than the one Asuka was holding at bay in Unit 02. He cursed his girlfriend's perceptiveness once again, this exercise had been her idea, Ritsuko had been curious to how Unit 02's abilities had altered since it ingested the S2 organ a month ago and Maya had suggested they test the abilities of all three Evangelion units in a series of tests, her idea had been met with scepticism at best by the commanders but _then_ she'd brought up the fact they worked remarkably like humans when it came to their muscle consistency and that the only Unit that was working at a healthy average both her and Ritsuko had scaled up from an average human was his unit, and the command had approved of the idea.

"Move!" Shinji ground out, forcing his Eva to take a step forwards and push even harder against the weight, only to find his connection suddenly cut by remote.

Forcing the Eva to sync with him he shifted it as it fell so the unit landed on its right shoulder, feeling a pain shoot up his back as the fall jarred the Evangelion's own spine.

(Page Break)

Asuka smirked as she saw Unit 01 suddenly collapse backwards, "Leave the tests of strength to me! You're obviously too weak baka!"

"Cut the chatter 02. And FYI, we cut his synchronisation from here, he nearly destroyed the equipment." Asuka deflated at Ritsuko's curt tone, only to find herself staring up at the ceiling of the chamber they were in.

"Damn it!"

(Page Break)

Shinji hissed as he collapsed into the chair, pain lancing up his back like white hot fire.

"Shinji? You okay?" He nodded his head weakly at Maya's concerned look as he reached around and rubbed his back in an attempt to quell the pain.

He shifted away from Maya as she tried to touch the spot he was rubbing on his back, drawing an annoyed look from her.

"Damn it Shinji-kun, stop trying to handle everything by yourself, you need to let people help you more, please Shinji-kun…" she drew to a close when his eyes filled with resignation, before he slumped forwards, letting her hands gently caress his back, loosening the knots that had tightened in his muscles and relieving the pressure against his spine that'd caused it to jar when his Eva collapsed.

Letting out a low contented purr Shinji leaned back into Maya's arms as she finished, effectively pinning her to the chair.

(Page Break)

Asuka frowned as she looked around the room, she'd been chatting with some of the other girls in her class over ice-cream when the room had suddenly fallen silent, not the quiet lull that occurred between conversations or the awkward silence that filled a room when someone lets the cat out of the bag, no this was more of a complete silence, as if she were in some horror film and the killer was about to tap her on the shoulder and claim her life next.

"What the hell? If the power's not up in the next ten minutes I'm gonna call this in."

"Shouldn't you call it in now? I mean, maybe its some sort of Angel attack…" the blond across from her probed, worried about what would happen if it really did turn out to be an Angel attack, as she was the only one who's Eva could operate indefinitely without an external power source.

"Damn, you're right, gimme a minute; I'm just stepping outside to call this one in."

The remaining three girls sat in silence for a few minutes as the Redhead disappeared out onto the surprisingly vacant street, it wasn't that they were usually crowded; most of the people still in the city had ties to NERV, but even then the place was never as empty as it felt now.

Asuka slipped inside the parlour and quickly made her way over to the group, quickly explaining what was going on and that she needed to head in to report and that they should head towards their shelters in case it turned out there was an Angel attack.

(Page Break)

Shinji scowled as the elevator suddenly died, stopping dead in the shaft, the emergency lights flicking on as the usual lights died along with the elevator.

His eyes fell to rest on the large emergency button, only to find it already being pressed by the elevator's sole other occupant.

"Guess we're settling in for the long haul…unless the backup kicks in anyway, wait, didn't you say the backup kicked in automatically?" Shinji's gaze turned to look at the roof of the lift for a scant few seconds before sighing. 'Get real, this isn't a film. In real life they _don't_ want you to get out of one if it breaks down.'

"It must've finally keeled over, you know what the wiring's like in this place, it's the whole reason we've got Shigeru on the bridge, you'd be amazed how often he has to rig the boards because we can't replace them…"

(Page Break)

Rei stared listlessly at the still closed elevator doors, before turning around and walking back through the still open automatic double doors.

(Page Break)

Misato scowled, here she was stuck in an elevator, a hot elevator at that, and to make matters worse, she was stuck in here with her _ex_-boyfriend who she currently had little respect for, especially after the stunt he'd pulled during Unit 02's transfer, what in God's name had _that_ been all about anyway?

She sat down in one of the corners, pulling her legs under herself as she glared at the pony-tailed man.

(Page Break)

Asuka slowed to a halt as she approached a heavy hydraulic door, pitted and pierced with debris from the collapsed ceiling, one of the larger tremors having sealed the tunnel.

Her gaze came to fall onto a small panel.

"There is no way in hell I'm gonna crawl through there!"

A deep rumbling announced the collapse of the tunnel behind her.

Sighing she pulled thin bar out of the rubble and set about ripping the panel off.

"At least I'm not crawling through a damn vent like they do in all those pre-impact spy movies…" she grumbled as she set about crawling through the small maintenance passage.

(Page Break)

Ritsuko groaned as she plopped down in the vacant chair before the now inactive computer consoles, frustrated at the lack of key personnel, more specifically Misato and the pilots, Maya she would've been able to get by without, but without any of the pilots or their operations manager she was at a loss, how the hell was she supposed to fight something she couldn't see that she had no previous data on.

She turned to look at the spooked tech who'd walked over to her.

"What?" she ground out.

"It's the maintenance duct ma'am, we can't be sure but we think one of the pilots may be trying to reach us through it." The young tech replied, either ignorant of her exasperated tone or he'd been expecting it, and considering the last one had been nearly pounced on she suspected it was the latter.

Ritsuko nearly strangled him where he stood. "And why are you stood here talking to me?" she paused to take a deep cleansing breath. "Sorry, I'm just a little stressed; you have sent someone in to try and find out haven't you?"

The tech nodded once before he walked off again, one of the others waving him over towards the open hatch, a head of almost glowing red hair poking out of it.

(Page Break)

Asuka took the offered hand and stepped out of the maintenance duct, brushing off some of the dirt that had clumped together on her once sunny yellow t-shirt and her faded blue jeans.

She looked around wearily before her red rimmed eyes came to rest on a familiar lab-coated form.

"Souryu reporting ma'am."

(Page Break)

Shigeru grunted as he pulled in time with the rest of his group, consisting of the strongest men they could find to help manually prep Eva Unit 02 for launch.

What they were doing was simple enough, pull the entry plug hatch open using a set of pulleys, the hard part had been attaching them in the first place, _that_ hadn't been fun.

"Hatch is open; all we need now is the pilot." Shigeru looked over at the stone faced commander who had been leading the efforts to manually prepare the unit, his normal jacket having been discarded, left over the railings whilst he worked up a sweat with the rest of the men there, all the while organising the efforts.

"Sir, Pilot Souryu has just arrived! She's on her way to suit up now!"

"Get her back here now! We've not got time to waste for her to dress up in that useless suit." The tech nodded before running off to fetch the only available pilot to her unit, and send her off as quickly as possible.

(Page Break)

Asuka grumbled as she shifted in the LCL saturated plug, her jeans sticking uncomfortably against her skin as she tried to focus on getting to the surface, climbing up one of the launch shafts they usually used took longer than she'd thought it would, even now she was finally approaching the last hatch she thought of how much faster it would've been for her if the electromagnetic rails had been working.

Pulling herself up through the now destroyed final hatch she slid the rifle they'd told her to pick up from Unit 01's rail restraints, it being the standard armament for its deployment whilst hers was a much simpler progressive spear, like the one she had used against the seventh Angel when it attacked.

Tucking the rifle into her shoulder she expanded her AT field, just as she had been trained to do so until it was almost second nature to her, taking a rough aim at the spider like Angel she yanked the trigger and held it, struggling to keep the rifle aimed at the Angel she grunted, before releasing the trigger as the weapon let out a loud click, the clip empty.

She let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding when the Angel's spider like form collapsed, its body dropping down the shaft it'd been using to try and invade NERV.

She turned around and began to climb back down the launch shaft, idly wondering if she'd even get so much as a 'good job' for killing the Angel this time.

(Page Break)

Shinji blinked as he felt the elevator slowly rumble into life, continuing on its accent as it had been before the power went out. Shifting slightly he sighed as he noticed the tight embrace the warm body wrapped around him had entangled him in.

"Maya-san, time to wake up, we're moving again."

Maya groaned as she shifted, pulling herself flush against the warm body wrapped around her.

"Maya-san, Maya-san…" Shinji called to her for a few more moments before she cracked her sleep weary eyes, idly letting her jacket fall off to one side, revealing her bra clad form, her shirt having been discarded not long after the elevator had stopped, forgoing modesty for the sake of keeping cool, much as Shinji had, only he was sat in his jeans, everything else having been discarded and used as a pillow so he could get as comfortable as possible given the situation.

"We're moving again, looks like the power's back up." He felt Maya nod against his chest before she sat up and pulled her jacket back on, absently forgetting to pull her shirt back on underneath it.

_Ding_

Ritsuko blinked as the doors opened, revealing a pair of half-naked bodies.

"Sorry, did I interrupt something?"

(Page Break)

Two weeks later Asuka found herself blinking as she watched Shinji, she'd originally come in to tell him to turn his music down, or at least put something _worth_ listening to on, this western pre-impact stuff was just downright screwed up.

"Fifty." With no further ad due he rolled onto his stomach, throwing his arms out to his sides as he began to repeatedly push himself off the ground, lowering himself before repeating the movement, calling out how many reps he'd done as he did so.

"Shinji!" she shouted, gleaning no response from the focused youth, she tried again.

"Shinji!" Once again she gained no response, the young man was either too wrapped up in the motion or he was ignoring her.

She felt the apartment's front door slam closed, meaning that her guardian was home, hopefully that would mean he'd turn the music down finally.

Misato poked her head around the door to Shinji's room, her head bobbing along to the beat, sending him a smile as she walked past him to his stereo she turned the volume up before waiting for him to finish his press-ups and help her with her own exercises.

Asuka's groan was drowned out by the volume as she slumped off.

(Page Break)

Maya smiled as she noticed the new addition to their small group, both she and Shigeru had managed to convince Ritsuko that they needed some more free time, or at least enough time to keep reasonably healthy, whilst originally they'd would've just used the time to work out in the base's Gym, they'd managed to get a sort of semi-formal group together, with a fair number of people working for NERV having learned some sort of Martial art, they'd managed to 'convince' the powers that be to give them the funding to buy the kit they'd need, as neither of them wanted a repeat of the last time anyone had not used any.

Misato looked around nervously, trying to forget the last time she'd been to any sort of fitness club; at least she knew some of the people here, she'd yet to decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing yet.

Now where was Shinji? If he wasn't here at least she might get some peace at home, but then that wouldn't matter if Maya or one of the other techs mentioned this to him.

"_Captain Katsuragi report to Briefing Room one ASAP."_

Misato frowned at the sudden save, while she'd been having second thoughts, this sounded like the prelude to another Angel attack.

(Page Break)

"So it's an Angel? And it's dropping parts of itself whilst it adjusts its aim?"

Ritsuko nodded.

"And we haven't got anything strong enough to blow it out of the sky?"

Another nod.

"So what are we going to do then? Catch it?"

Ritsuko looked at Misato with a raised eyebrow before shaking her head.

"That's insane. We need to order the evacuation from the city; we can always relocate to another base."

"In less than twelve hours? Are you fucking crazy? We'd lose everything excluding one maybe two of the Eva's!"

"Two Eva's would be better than losing all of them on some half-baked idea like that! Even the Magi recommend complete withdrawal from everywhere within a fifty kilometre radius."

"We'll work out the details later, right now we need to issue a D-17 and evacuate all civilians and non-essential personnel."

Ritsuko nodded once again before leaving the room.

'What a time for both the commander and sub-commander to be missing…'

(Page Break)

"I've called you here because there's another Angel." The assembled trio stared stoically at her, blinking in eerie union. "Right, the problem is it's attacking by dropping parts of its body from just inside the atmosphere, we calculate that when it reaches here it'll launch a full scale attack using its entire body; the blast radius will be huge, the Magi recommended we evacuate to outside fifty kilometres."

"And we're here for what?"

"You're here because I have a mission plan; however, due to the circumstances you aren't required to participate. The plan is to catch the Angel as it falls using the Evas and neutralize it."

She blinked when Asuka burst out into laughter.

"So we're to catch the Angel as it falls and kill it."

Misato looked at Shinji's cold features as he smirked. "Yeah."

"Sounds fun."

"I will also pilot."

"What the hell, if these two are going through with a half-baked idea like this then what have I got to lose?"

Shinji turned to look at Asuka. "It's not a _half-baked_ plan."

"So what _is_ it then? Because if it were any crazier we'd have to get Misato here committed."

"It's _all_ baked."

(Page Break)

Shinji sighed as he lay back onto the standard issue bunk in the NERV barracks located inside the Geofront, folding his hands behind his head he closed his eyes as he tried to imagine he was back in Maya's apartment in Okinawa, with her snuggled up against him after they'd stayed up to watch some late night film.

His eyes snapped open as he rocked forwards, half-leaping half-rolling out of the bunk before he headed towards the nearby gym to take his mind off his next mission.

His mind absently recalled the shocked look on Misato's face when he laughed at the mention of writing a will as he threw a starting jab, setting the ceiling mounted punch bag rocking as he launched himself into a long combo of moves. _'Sure, I don't need one when I'm climbing in and there's likely to be someone to actually _get_ anything I leave behind but when there's not gonna be anything left if I screw up then they tell me to write one, idiots…'_

He weaved as he brought his jab back into his guard before throwing a powerful right cross at the bag, rocking it violently on its chains.

"Great, I really need to start using heavier weights; I can barely feel these…must be all that time in Eva…" Shinji scowled for a moment before twisting into a spinning hook kick that yanked one of the weak links apart, unnoticed as he twisted again and slammed his knee into the bag at stomach height, completely destroying its momentum.

Scowl still in place he stalked off towards the pilots changing rooms, in the hope of getting a nice _relaxing_ shower.

(Page Break)

Maya stared listlessly out the train window, her empty eyes distant and detached.

'_Why Shinji? Why did you send me away?_' Maya mentally begged, trying to give into herself and believe that everything would be alright, that Shinji wouldn't leave her like everyone else did, _like father did_.

Maya shivered when she felt a pair of warm arms wrap a heavy coat around her, letting her snuggle into its warmth for comfort.

"Worrying about him again?" Maya nodded as she brought her formally empty gaze onto the speaker, finding a certain blond masseur giving her a sympathetic look. "He'll be fine, remember what happened with the fifth? We all thought that shot was going to kill him and he managed to come out of that one just fine. And there's three of them this time."

"I know."

(Page Break)

Shinji scowled as he looked at the projected map, trying to figure out how the hell he was supposed to get his Eva from one side of the city to the other if the Angel dropped there, especially with all of the armour on the damn thing.

"No _fucking_ way."

The entire assembled group stared at him, mouths agape.

"There is absolutely no _fucking_ way I can get Eva to anywhere near that projected area to cover. She might be fast, but she's not _that_ fast."

Ritsuko was the first to recover.

"So what would you suggest?"

"That you rip off as much of the armour as you can in the next six hours, because even if it lands within four kilometres it'll take me about a minute to reach it, something that size dropping from orbit ain't gonna wait that long for me to catch it."

"So, on the off chance that you _do_ manage to catch it if we remove the armour, what's going to protect _you_ from getting crushed to death?"

"AT field."

Ritsuko had the good grace to look embarrassed. "…Why did the kid have to be so damn perceptive…" she muttered, rubbing the bridge of her nose between two fingers.

"Is there anything else or can I go now?"

Shinji shifted from one foot to the other, anxious to leave now that his point had been made, I mean come on, how much armour does a biomech really need to catch something anyway?

With a nod from Misato Shinji turned and walked out of the room, absently noting the pair following him.

Once the elevator doors slid shut behind him he lent back against the wall.

"Can I help you two?"

(Page Break)

Ritsuko openly scowled as she stood glaring at the formerly Purple Armour-clad form of Eva Unit 01, now having been stripped down to its base breastplate, greaves and gauntlets, even the brain case had been lightened as much as possible, and to top it all off, she had _no_ idea of its new capabilities or energy requirements, as it was now quite possible that the internal battery would last twice as long under normal circumstances, but these could hardly be called normal circumstances could they?

"Ma'am, we've finished the adjustments you ordered, however, we've no way of knowing what the combat efficiency of the unit is now; or how long the internal power will last for." Ritsuko just rubbed the bridge of her nose; the damned third just had to be so bloody practical didn't he?

"I know, I suppose we'll find out sooner or later won't we?"

(Page Break)

Misato frowned as she looked over at Shinji from her position in the observation room, he was currently sat behind one of the unoccupied computer terminals fully suited up, a small MP3 player rest on the desk, the earphones stuffed into his ears as he swayed along to whatever he was listening to.

'Doesn't he realise how important it is that he doesn't screw this up? If he fails then we'll all die! Couldn't he be prepping for launch or something, he's never done anything like this before combat!' Whilst if anyone were to ask her what was wrong she'd just brush it off, the sheer surreal manner Shinji was acting in had sent up all kinds of red flags and every single alarm bell was ringing inside her, and probably more than a few of the others as well.

Shinji's eyes snapped open as the terminal before him bleeped into life, his eyes quickly skimmed the text before he stood up and strolled out of the room, reappearing back into view moments later as he walked towards his plug, shaking the earphones free before passing the MP3 player to one of the few techs that were still on base.

He eagerly leapt into his waiting plug before it slid shut and worked itself into the spine of the Eva, the few essential armour plates folding over but still leaving very little to secure it in place if anything were to go wrong.

"Move the Eva's into position as soon as possible."

(Page Break)

Shinji twitched along to an imaginary techno beat inside his entry plug whilst he waited for the nerve clusters to finish synchronising with him, only to smirk as the beat began to play inside the plug and over one of the comm. channels as well, at least, that was the impression he got when several people let out a squeak of surprise as it played out of several sets of speakers nearby.

"Ikari here, no problems, ready to move out."

Shinji blinked as he heard a few vague terms tossed about on the other end of the link before he felt the Evangelion being steadily raised towards the surface, towards the centre of his projected area he needed to cover so that all three Evas would cover the entire city.

He lowered the Eva into a crouch as the beat began to deviate from the beat he remembered, becoming a mix of the songs he'd heard as he waited to sprint off.

(Page Break)

Asuka shifted nervously as she focused herself, making sure tat she would get every last drop of energy out of her Eva's S2 organ that she could get, she knew her Eva was the heaviest of the three, it always had been, and that would put her at a speed disadvantage compared with the others, but she'd be dammed before she admitted it.

(Page Break)

Rei's features radiated a calm that eluded both Shinji and Asuka, her almost Zen like state due to her absolute knowledge that they would not fail to catch and neutralise the falling Angel before it destroyed NERV and Tokyo III along with it.

(Page Break)

"Target at 2000 and falling. Magi guidance will cut out at 1000, Move!"

Shinji burst into motion before the power cable fully ejected, his feet pounding against the ground as he sprinted towards the Magi's directions, grateful that the buildings had all been lowered and the emergency buildings hadn't been raised.

Had he not been pouring all his power into movement and a small amount to other vital systems Shinji might have noticed that the power remaining in his internal battery began to quickly drain as he literally ran up a hill before stopping as he leapt down the other side, before returning to its previous rate as he began to sprint towards the Angel once again.

(Page Break)

"Target at 1200 and falling, Magi guidance cut in 100." Misato reported, her tone cold and business like, those three were out there to save the world, and that was what they were going to do.

Ritsuko gasped as she looked at the energy readings she was getting from Unit 01, which, unlike the other two units, were rapidly fluctuating as if Shinji were subconsciously adjusting the output to suit his needs, but surely he couldn't be doing that, could he?

(Page Break)

A loud boom popped Shinji's ears as he forced the Eva to accelerate faster towards the Angel's impact zone, the music in his ears now pulsing in time to his own heart as it raced with him.

Cutting all power Shinji locked his legs into a skid as he reached the top of the hill that the Angel was going to land on, letting out a defiant roar as he threw up a wide AT field, literally snarling as the Angel began to push against it.

Another snarl tore itself from his throat as the Angel's body finally touched his hands; his muscles bulged in response, every single muscle in his Eva's body visibly contracting against the weight, shattering the greaves and gauntlets whilst buckling the breast plate away from his body.

Blood exploded from the overstressed veins and arteries throughout his Eva, pouring out onto the ground like some macabre fountain.

His salvation came in the form of Units 00 and 02 as they reached his location, adding their AT fields to his own as they impaled the Angel onto their prog knives.

Shinji breathed out as the Angel died, collapsing his AT field as the music around him faded out, only to throw his arms around his head as the Angel's body exploded around him, turning the Eva's exposed skin into charcoal.

"Shin…" Shinji weakly pulled his head from between his knees at the panicked voice before he found the world fading out around him.

(Page Break)

Rei stared at the bed's occupant, his body jerking slightly in response to some dream, she stood further back than the room's other occupant, NERV's purple haired operations chief, Captain Misato Katsuragi, who was leaning over the bed, trying to get its single occupant to sleep peacefully, and having little success, her last attempt had him violently jerk away from her, his teeth snapping together in a bite that would've probably taken one of her fingers off if she'd not been surprised by the sudden jerk.

Rei blinked only to find the fist still planted against Misato's jaw, only to find a pair of terrified deep azure eyes staring at the sight, before following the arm down to its shoulder, his own.

Shinji let out a whimper as he crawled away across the hospital bed, almost curling up into a ball as he did so, his face hidden behind his arms.

AN: This chapter will probably get rewritten at some time, and as the current shortest chapter, has successfully turned two of the more difficult Angels in the series into foot notes. Lovely.

Omake:

A hand reached out blindly to grab for the bottle of shower gel he'd put behind him, only to come into contact with something warm and _squishy_.

He squeezed.

"Ah."

Shinji turned around as he rubbed the water out of his eyes with his free hand and absently squeezed again.

"Ah. Um, Shinji-kun? A little harder please."

Shinji's eyes opened in shock as he recognised the voice. "Um, Akagi-san what are you doing in here?"

"Well, I _came_ in here for a shower, but, if such a handsome young _stud_ such as yourself wants me to do someone else. Well…" she grinned ferally as she pressed herself up against him, idly squeezing his hands against her breasts.

Shinji blinked.

"Rits, you should be ashamed of yourself!" the duo turned to face the new speaker as she strutted across to them, also naked as the day she was born. "Trying to steal Maya's young stud like that and not sharing him with me! Shame on you!"

Shinji gulped audibly as both women started to press themselves against him, each one pinning a hand to their chest.

More than a little flustered with two beautiful, _unattached_ women rubbing themselves against him in an arousing manner, he quickly found himself backed up against the wall.

Squirming slightly he let out a girlish squeak as the water suddenly turned icy cold.

The two amorous women jumped back with a squeal of surprise and quickly backed off so as not to get splashed by the young man who was now desperately trying to get some hot water out of the shower.

The duo looked at one another.

"Think we should get outta here before he gets pissed?"

"You go on; I'm kinda enjoying the view…"

"And what a view it is…"


	5. Chapter 5

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Remastered

By Death 12

Chapter 5

Ritsuko sighed as she tapped away at the console before her, once again wondering just how screwed up the pilots were mentally, the reports had told her that Asuka suffered from abandonment and low self-esteem issues and that she usually tried to cover them up by being loud and aggressive, and she knew first-hand that Rei suffered from chronic apathy, and cared next to nothing for her own life.

'At least until recently.' She mentally corrected herself; she'd noticed Rei's finally start to take interest in living and would do things that she didn't need to, something that had begun around the time of the Seventh Angel.

Ritsuko frowned as her thoughts turned to the last of their current pilots, who had, until a scant few days ago had appeared to be fairly normal, if you ignored the fact he apparently suffered from nightmares on an almost daily basis.

'Then he had to go and blow that one out of the water, he's like a text book battered child now…' She sighed again as she remembered _exactly_ where her assistant was at that very moment. 'At least he's recovering again, but what the hell set him off like that?'

She typed a few more lines in again before reaching over for her coffee, bringing it to her lips before setting it off to the side once again, her eyes wandered across to the painfully black bruise that Misato sported on her jaw. 'Note to self, never wake Shinji up from a nightmare.'

"Yes it does hurt as much as it looks." Ritsuko's eyes snapped back to Misato's own, having been caught staring. "I _never_ want to be one the receiving end of one of his punches if that's any indication of how hard he hits."

"Yeah, I've left a note with the medical staff to make sure he's either awake or comatose before treating him and to not wake him under any circumstances barring a life and death situation." She tapped in a few more keys before looking back up at Misato again. "How's he taking it?"

"Badly. He's decided to stay in the NERV barracks for the next few days, something about needing some time to work it over."

"And you?"

Misato gave her an even look. "Still saw as hell, and I think one of my teeth is loose…" Misato rolled her eyes at Ritsuko's wince, "But I'm more worried about what the hell set him off like that, any ideas Rits?"

"None at all, but I hope he's still okay tomorrow, we need to do a base sync test."

Misato raised an eyebrow. "Another one? They had one less than a month ago, why'd they need one so soon?"

"It's so we can develop the Dummy Plug system, auto pilot basically, it's for emergency use, like when the children are injured or we need to be able to defend ourselves _now_ and can't wait for them. Like that first time with Shinji."

Misato nodded.

(Page Break)

Shinji growled as he spun into a low elbow, sending the base of the punch bag rocking off to the side, his right elbow hitting the middle as he followed through with the movement, before a jumping knee to about chest height locked the chain together full, groaning under the force as a link gave slightly under the force of the combo.

"Damn it, whenever I want to practise there's no one around, how the hell am I supposed to stay sharp without a partner?" A vicious roundhouse kick punctuated the statement as he twisted it into a hook-kick midway through the move.

He launched back at the punch bag with a rising elbow from an uppercut in a way that he'd _definitely_ not learned in his Jujitsu sessions.

A right cross sent the bag rocking once again as he disrupted the momentum it had built up before simply _booting_ it to completely stop it.

Taking a look at his knuckles and elbows he let out a long strangled cry.

"Fuck that hurts!"

(Page Break)

Ritsuko frowned as she noted the day-old bandages still wrapped around his hands and elbows, she'd wrapped them for him yesterday when she'd found him cursing on his way to the nearest clinic in the facility.

"Shinji, you know we can't have any foreign matter that might affect the results. And remember to change them after the test."

"Would you rather me bleed everywhere inside the plug? There's no skin on my knuckles or elbows, and you know that the LCL stops my body reacting to injury. They come open and I'm not helping you clean the plug." He retorted automatically even as he peeled the relatively clean bandages off.

"You shouldn't be doing anything to break the scabs; we're just recording baseline sync data for R&D purposes."

"You mean so you can develop a lean, mean, auto-pilot fighting machine don't you? Come on, I know I'm not the smartest but can you people at least not treat me like I'm bloody thick? Remember, until you finish your auto-pilot _I'm_ the one sticking my arse on the line out there." Shinji replied as he walked into the decontamination room that led the way to the 'clean' room beyond.

"Don't forget that mind control device we're making to take over the world Shinji-kun!" He just hid his head in his hands at his girlfriend's antics. "And don't shake your head like that at me, I'm not _that_ bad!"

"Is there a reason the camera's on or does Maya just know me too well?" he asked as he eyed the red light on the security camera through the clear sealed door before him.

"Well, you've been through the wash seventeen times, go on through to the plug."

"_WHAT?_" both Shinji and Rei visibly flinched at the volume, rubbing their ears in union.

"Shinji?"

"Yeah sure." He muttered as he walked out of the room and out into the isolated corridor, naked as the day he was born and apparently not really all that bothered by it, even as the still live camera turned to follow him.

"Maya?"

"Yes Shinji-kun?"

"You're a real pervert, you know that?"

(Page Break)

Shigeru groaned as he noticed a slight discolouration to one of the panels through the remote camera.

"Makoto?"

"Yeah Shig?"

"Order a replacement for panel Thirteen B, it looks like its not been replaced recently."

Makoto turned around to face the other Tech. "We put that one in just last week, it shouldn't be ready for replacement yet."

The sub-commander leaned forwards to look at the image.

"Well make sure it gets replaced before tomorrow or Ikari will hand us all our asses."

"Yes sir!"

(Page Break)

"Anything unusual?" Ritsuko asked over the comm. link to the pilots, idly running a glance over one of the screens before her.

"No."

"Nothing besides the arm being the only clear part."

"Control fades when I try to take control elsewhere. Safeguard?" A bright smile spread its way across Ritsuko's features as the ever astute Third Child once again picked up on something the others didn't.

"It is, we need clear results for each section to help with the research, carry on testing, and report back anything you find."

(Page Break)

Shinji shook his head as he felt a ghost run its fingers along his spine, leaving the chill of the grave to fill him.

"Who gave the Magi their sense of humour? They keep firing nerve pulses and at the minute I feel like someone's doing a damn jig on my grave!"

"Don't look at me, I just upgrade and maintain them, Mother transcribed her personality onto them, then again, Mother always did have a wicked sense of humour."

Shinji nodded before he felt the chilling feeling run up his back again as he heard Ritsuko order Rei to expand her AT field.

His eyes bulged.

"Oh Shit!"

(Page Break)

Maya's eyes bulged as a large blaring notice appeared across every monitor in the room.

_Pattern Blue detected._

"Oh shit."

Maya's head whipped up as two of the plugs ejected suddenly, whilst one didn't, her mind quickly filled in the blank.

"Shinji!"

(Page Break)

Commander Gendo Ikari frowned as he noticed a large number of isolation reports flash into existence on his screen, quickly covering it in ever changing tactical updates and reports from nearly every section around the Pribnow Box.

"Who authorised the isolation of the Sigma unit?" He asked from behind a pair of white gloved folded hands, his orange tinted glasses covering his narrowed eyes.

"The reports all say that they were emergency authorised by Corporal Shinji Ikari. All our consoles are locked out of the Magi, you don't think _she_ did it do you?"

Gendo shook his head at the older man's question.

"The only person who could do that is _dead_ Professor."

"I wish I was so sure."

(Page Break)

Shinji screamed as he felt pain wrack through his brain, the sudden pain causing his hand to miss his emergency eject button, a feat he hadn't managed to do whilst concussed after the Positron rifle had exploded against him with the Fifth angel.

Darkness washed into his world as the pain ebbed, his conscious following it into the darkness.

(Page Break)

Misato grabbed the back of Ritsuko's lab coat as she turned and raced out of the darkening room, the techs that had been occupying it having already fled as all three of the Eva's simulation bodies simultaneously detonated, the force fracturing the window of the control room, small trickles of water pouring through expanded as the pressure forced the toughened glass to give way under the pressure.

"We need to get the hell out of here Rits, they've started to isolate Sigma unit." Misato shouted as she ran, puling her friend along as she raced after the techs away from the now sealed room.

(Page Break)

Shigeru's eyes bulged as his screen returned to normal, excluding a large notice that someone was trying to connect to the Magi, someone from _without_ authorisation.

His fingers danced across the keyboard as he and Makoto began to try and stall the virtual intruder until Ritsuko got to a working console.

"Fuck! Intruder has connected! Magi reprogrammed!" Shigeru scowled as he focused himself, the onscreen representation of Melchior rapidly becoming red as it was reprogrammed by the intruder.

"Connection traced! It's coming from the Pribnow Box!"

"Cut the connection!"

"No good, Melchior's been completely reprogrammed! Balthazar's being hacked!"

"Reduce logic speed to fifteen seconds!"

The spread of infection visibly slowed as the command was accepted, the entire room turned to look over at the speaker, their eyes falling onto their commander, still sat in his usual, unflinching position of power.

"Report!"

The room turned to look at the three people who'd just appeared on the bridge, visibly sweating from their mad dash.

"Magi have been hacked, Melchior has been reprogrammed and Balthazar is under attack, Casper is still unaffected, logic cycle has been changed to fifteen second intervals to slow down the speed of the infection." Ritsuko's features brightened slightly at the final piece of information, grateful that her life's work hadn't been destroyed just yet.

"What the hell?"

The infection on the screen began to speed up an announcement sounded.

"_Logic speed change, rejected."_

Shigeru ripped open a floor panel as he swung himself down into the bowels of the bridge, hacking through a bundle of wires with what appeared to be a wrist mounted flick-knife.

His first task accomplished he swung back up, dashing across the tiny railing that connected the two Magi stations before ripping open a second panel, swinging down once again into the guts of the system before hacking through several sets of wires, letting out an audible sigh of relief as Makoto changed the logic speed down to minute intervals.

"_Logic speed change, accepted."_

Pulling himself back out of the system, he casually slid the blade back into its sheath, making sure that it was securely in place before letting his sleeve fall back down.

"Lieutenant Aoba, I will ignore this breach in protocol as it has allowed us to respond to a critical strike, however, in future do not bring weapons in to work without authorisation."

"Yes sir! Can I have permission to bring to bring it into work?"

"Create a formal request and we shall consider it."

"Yes sir!" Internally Shigeru was jumping for joy; that was almost as good as a yes considering who he was dealing with.

(Page Break)

Shinji awoke to a pounding in his ears, as the darkness faded from his vision he found himself stuck in a cold damp plug, the LCL that had filled it having been automatically flushed out once he'd surfaced.

'_What happened?_'

'_An Angel appeared and attacked, it hacked the Magi, but why?_'

'_It found the connection in the simulation bodies?_'

'_Damn it! Get out of my mind!_'

He blinked when a body leapt away from him, realising afterwards he'd suddenly let out an ear-splitting scream.

"The Angel dead?" he asked, his voice sounding faint to his ears, as if he'd become hoarse whilst he was unconscious.

The man nodded as he offered Shinji a hand, pulling the birthday-suit clad young man onto the small platform they'd used to pull the plug from the centre of the lake.

Shinji blinked as he looked at the man, noticing his lips were moving, but hearing nothing.

(Page Break)

Misato looked across at the shivering blanket covered form, a dripping mop of lacklustre brown hair trailed over it, spraying water as the pile shivered again, the cold air of the Geo-front at night was cold enough to make her shiver in her jacket, so she didn't want to know how cold it was covered in cold LCL and stark-bollock naked to boot.

"So, any idea why he's gone deaf?"

Ritsuko sighed, "None, from what we've recovered of the records he was perfectly fine, but the recovery crew said he woke up screaming, and that he was whispering at them when he was talking, worst case, mental contamination from the simulation body or the Angel, he was the last one out of there, he had to hit his emergency eject; best case, him screaming in the plug or the explosion of the sim bodies has damaged his ears slightly, and they'll recover within the next couple of days."

Misato sighed as she cast a worried gaze over at the shivering pile of blankets sat huddled up into a corner.

(Page Break)

"So the Third Child has gone deaf?"

Ritsuko nodded as she shifted uncomfortably, the depressive emptiness of the office had always set her on edge, but its main occupant had designed it with that in mind, everything was designed to make sure no one opposed him. Not even her.

"Will he be able to continue as a pilot?"

Ritsuko shifted nervously as she felt a fat bead of sweat trickle down her neck, despite the almost sub-zero temperatures that the office was famous for, even _without_ the commander's presence.

"I believe so, as inside the Eva he will receive the sounds directly to his brain, and I believe that he will be able to recover his hearing regardless."

The commander leaned forwards, his chin resting on his thumbs.

"It will not interfere with the scenario. Dismissed."

Ritsuko resisted the urge to let out a sigh of relief until after she was outside the door to his office, and in the elevator to the train station to the surface.

"I really need a cigarette. And a drink. A stiff drink."

(Page Break)

Maya watched subdued as her lover once again set about beating the stuffing out of a punch bag, his bandaged elbows and wrapped knuckles covering the large scabs present on both after his last frustrated workout.

Stepping forwards she placed a hand on his shoulder after he retracted a punch, wrapping her arms around his waist as he stilled, nuzzling his neck before pulling him along towards the entrance, in what looked to be the direction of the pilot changing rooms.

(Page Break)

Shinji grunted as he rolled out of bed, blinking when he found an arm wrapped around him, he blinked as he noticed he was stood.

'_Oh yeah,'_ he realised, _'I spent the night at Maya's, now do I get a shower or get back in bed…'_ he spent less than a moment thinking about it as he carefully detached the arm before heading out of the room to find the shower.

(Page Break)

Maya groaned and shoved a pillow over her head as the sound of a vibrating phone rattled its way to her ears, managing to be even more annoying than normal despite being muffled not only by the heavy feather pillow she'd shoved over her head but the pair of jeans it was shoved into.

'_Don't people know to call at a decent hour? Damn it, if this isn't important someone is going to _die._'_

Throwing the double quilt off her she stalked across the room and snatched up the jeans, ripping the phone out of the pocket before jabbing the answer key.

"Maya speaking, this'd better be bloody important!"

Maya frowned as the answer can hesitantly, a woman almost whimpering in response replied, "Is Shinji-kun there?"

Maya looked idly across at the bed.

"No he isn't, who speaking?"

"Sorry, it's Mazurka. He was in the same orphanage as me until he got adopted, we kept in touch but he hasn't replied to my letters for the last few weeks and when I called the house they said he'd left about two months ago. They called me back a couple of days ago with this number and said to call him on it."

Maya's frown lightened slightly before she decided to let it go as something he'd neglected to mention to her at some stage, and to ask him about it later, preferably once his hearing was back.

"He's in the shower, I'll tell him you've called." Maya could swear she'd felt the girl nod happily.

"Thank you, bye!" Maya pulled the phone away from her ear before pressing the end call button.

Now to join Shinji.

(Page Break)

Shinji grunted as he felt the nerve connections shunt themselves against his subconscious, noting the very different feeling they had to those of Unit 01.

"No problems, but the nerves felt like they just shunted themselves when they connected, should I expect that at the next stage?"

"Yes, it'll just be the older connection system, we'll look into upgrading that soon." Ritsuko's voice floated into his brain, the auxiliary communication system making it sound grainy, but as it was only used in rare occasions there was no need to improve on it.

Another grunt as the secondary nerve connections shunted themselves online.

'You can definitely tell this is the oldest one, it's just shuddering online, hell, these nerve connections bloody hurt.'

Shinji blinked as he felt the third stage connections appear in the back of his mind.

'_What the hell?'_

"Third stage, no problems, no shunting, nothing."

(Page Break)

Maya blinked as the readings suddenly vanished from her monitor, along with the readings on everyone else's.

"What the hell?"

(Page Break)

_**Rei**_

'_What the?'_

_**Anger**_

'_Why would I be angry at Rei? She hasn't done anything…'_

_**A young Rei staring. "Old Hag."**_

'_Who? I've never…'_

_**Used**_

_**A blue faced young Rei, throat crushed.**_

'_What the hell?'_

_**Gendo**_

_**Bastard**_

_**Hate Gendo**_

_**Kill Gendo. Gendo Die.**_

Shinji pulled his hands away from his head as he forced his eyes open, his muscles visible straining to do so.

"Get out of my head!"

(Page Break)

The lights flickered back on around them, revealing a cracked viewing window, the Eva's fist embedded into the wall just above it, the rest of the Eva resting limply against it, partially encased in bakelite.

"Oh god, Shinji!"

Maya turned and began to rush towards the emergency access stairwell, closely followed by both Misato and Ritsuko; the former carrying what looked to be a fire extinguisher.

An arm blocked her path as she neared the ejected plug, moving to push past it she watched Misato liberally spray the plug with what looked to be water.

Maya started towards the plug as Misato dropped the now empty extinguisher and wrenched against the emergency panel hatch, the panel quickly opening under the combined force of the duo.

Maya jumped to the side as LCL began to flood out of the plug, ebbing after a few long moments; she ducked her head into the damaged plug before pulling it out to shout at Ritsuko, only to find herself being shoved out the way.

(Page Break)

Shinji blinked as his vision cleared, finding himself still laid in the empty plug, his suit a half-dry mess of LCL, he sat up with a curt grunt, a snap echoed throughout the plug as he shattered the scab-like crust that the LCL had formed across him.

A scream ripped itself from his throat as a spark of current lanced up his back.

Light poured into the plug as a small section at the bottom opened, he bolted out, eyes blinded by the intense light.

(Page Break)

Misato's arms slowly withdrew from around Maya's waist she the younger woman steadied herself, the pair of them watching the prone figure of the designated Third Child weakly push himself to his knees, resting on his forearms as he tried to catch his breath.

A small spark of surprise flittered through the group as he threw up, the remains of his last meal mixed with what looked to be blood and LCL.

(Page Break)

Gendo Ikari scowled as he looked over the latest report; the Third Child was in hospital after the cross-synchronisation with Unit 00.

"This will interfere with the scenario."

The sub-commander frowned slightly; concerned about the consequences this may have for the Third Child.

'I'm sorry Yui; I've failed to protect your son once again…'

(Page Break)

'_I'm really starting to hate this fucking ceiling.'_

Shinji growled as he sat up, leaning across and hitting the 'Call Nurse' button, the last time he'd been in he'd been ordered to use it when he woke up the first time from then on, more to save the nurses from having a heart attack every time he pulled the electrodes off his chest to cure that damn itch.

A nurse popped her head into his open doorway.

"Can I help you?"

"Letting me out might be a good idea. I need a shower, badly; unless someone's taken a liking to giving me a sponge bath?" the nurse stared blankly at him for a few moments before a blush spread across her face, her head disappeared for a second before she stepped inside to turn off the monitors and remove the IV from his wrist.

"That it? Can I go now?" Shinji asked as he threw his feet over the side of the bed, absently remembering that he'd been in his plug suit when he'd collapsed as his toes came into view.

"Second thoughts, any chance I can get some clothes? Maya'll murder me if I end up streaking to the changing rooms."

(Page Break)

Three days later Gendo Ikari found himself stood before his late wife's grave, a plain black marker inscribed with her name in stylised gold lettering, like so many others around it.

"He is fine Yui. He has grown up. He has a girlfriend now, Maya Ibuki." He paused for a moment, his eyes closing, viewing the world with clear eyes as he reached out to touch his wife's headstone.

"He will lead them into the future. Their future."

(Page Break)

Misato looked up surprised as the apartment door banged shut, a familiar figure stalked in, an unfamiliar black leather jacket wrapped around his form.

"I didn't expect you to be back this early; not gone to visit your mother's grave like the commander?"

Shinji snorted, "She's dead, I'm alive. By the way, I'm not going to be back tonight, I'm going out drinking to celebrate my seventeenth."

_That_ got Misato's attention.

"It's your birthday? Why didn't it say that in your?"

"It did." With that Shinji leaned past her and plucked can out of the fridge, opening it one handed before grabbing the rest of the four-pack with his right hand and striding into his room, leaving the door open as he began to change.

"Well…Happy Birthday…Look, I'm sorry, is there anything I can do?"

"Yeah, warn Ritsuko that I'm gonna have one hell of a hangover tomorrow."

Misato blinked.

Then sighed as she watched him take a long drink from the open can, before he walked back out of the apartment, drinking from one can and carrying the other three in his other hand.

(Page Break)

Maya sighed as she watched Shinji collapse onto her couch, the faint evening light tinting his face a pale red. Shaking her head she tilted his head to one side and left a bucket next to it, before heading to bed for the night.

'_I wonder what set him off? He's not been this bad on his birthday since I met him…'_

(Page Break)

Shinji sat up as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, absently kicking the bucket as he tried to focus enough to remember where the nearest shower was.

Standing up he blinked wearily before he felt himself being shoved back onto the couch.

"Okay Shinji. What's got you pissed off enough to go and damn near drink yourself into a coma?" The force behind the voice just confused him; it wasn't as if it was the first time he'd gone and got shit-faced was it?

"Huh? What?" Even as he spoke his brain tried and failed to grasp the question, partly due to the dull throbbing and partly to due with last night being a complete blank.

Maya sighed.

"Just go and get a shower, forget I said anything."

(Page Break)

Asuka grumbled as she sat in the entry plug, already covered in LCL along with Rei in her own plug and they had yet to start the test; instead of simply staggering the tests as they usually did they were waiting on Shinji and his girlfriend.

'_Why the hell does _he_ always get special treatment? If I'd hit Misato like that I'd be thrown in the damn brig. And why the hell are we waiting for him anyway? Why can't we just start without him?'_ Asuka's almost non-existent patience was almost at breaking point with the obvious preferential treatment that the Third Child was receiving, it wasn't as if he was the only one who could pilot, especially after they'd literally just picked him up off the street when they'd needed him.

The internal clock hit half past.

'_That's it. He's half an hour late and I want to know just why the hell _I_ have to wait for _him_!'_

A small window blinked into existence on her HUD.

"Misato, he's still not here. Can't we just start the test already? It's obvious he's not gonna turn up!" A little tact never hurt anyone after all, and besides, she would probably get an answer this time, last time she'd tried demanding an answer they just severed the connection.

"No we can't, because nobody wants to have to run through this twice, and we need test data from all three of you; so stop complaining!" Misato blinked at something off-screen, before shaking her head. "Never mind, he's here now anyway."

The window disappeared.

(Page Break)

A window popped up on the electrolysed HUD only to slam closed as Shinji glared at it.

"_Shinji, concentrate, you're barely giving off a baseline reading here."_

His expression shifted slightly as he turned to look at a certain lab-coated bottle blond.

"You do know what day it is right?"

"It's Tuesday." Ritsuko deadpanned.

"It's the day after my birthday and my mother's death. I have a hang-over. A _bad_ hang-over." Ritsuko rolled her eyes at him, before opening her mouth to speak.

"Another drink and I'd've needed my stomach pumping. Do not start today."

"Is that a threat Corporal Ikari? Need I remind you who you're speaking to?"

"No _Doctor Akagi_, a threat would be 'Shut up or I'll have Casper show exactly what you get up to on break on every screen from here to old Tokyo'. Now either shut up or give me some aspirin. I don't care which. Ikari out." The window snapped shut, leaving a fuming Ritsuko to twitch violently, turning to glare at Misato.

"Hey, I warned you. You should know how people end up after getting plastered; or have you completely forgotten rooming with me at college?" Maya tried to hide the look of amusement and failed, miserably.

Ritsuko twitched again and started typing.

"I wouldn't if I were you." Ritsuko blinked. "My boyfriend happens to have an active link to all three of the Magi right now, probably half of the reason he's got such a bad hang-over."

"The other half being a shot away from alcohol poisoning I take it?"

"That too."

(Page Break)

Hikari frowned as the siren blared, prompting her to dash towards the nearest Angel Shelter, little more than a giant coffin in her own cynical view of them, but she could see the point after hearing Toji and Kensuke's near death experience outside during the battle with the fourth angel.

Turning her gaze skywards as she ran she caught a glimpse of a black lined sphere of glowing white.

Catching herself starring she stopped looking and began to run once again.

(Page Break)

Shinji scowled as he dropped the breast plate back into his locker, the damn thing hadn't helped him before so why would it now?

He turned and exited the room his features still contorted in a frown, the terminal he'd checked earlier had told him the pattern didn't match an Angel attack, so why were they sounding the alarm unless they knew something he didn't?

(Page Break)

Maya shifted uncomfortably in her seat, something felt _wrong_.

She drew her knees up slightly and hugged them as she watched her readouts for any changes, even a slight blip in a reading, _anything_ so she could tell Shinji to pull back where he'd be safe.

Makoto glanced over at his young co-worker, before sharing a glance with Shigeru. They shared a nod, he'd noticed it too.

Something _bad_ was going to happen. He knew it.

(Page Break)

"We've picked up an orange pattern AT field in the city," Ritsuko turned her gaze across all three views, making sure that they were paying attention to her before continuing. "We don't know _what_ it is, but we think it might be an angel without it's AT field raised. Remember, this is a Recon mission; we want you all back alive. Be careful."

Ritsuko's gaze lingered on Shinji's image for a moment, making a note of the plain body of the plug suit, before dismissing it; they were operating in city anyway, not like it mattered much.

(Page Break)

Rei frowned slightly as she shifted Unit 00 into a position to support Unit 01 with her rifle, the weapon resembling a combat sniper rifle, being designed for this exact purpose rather than to eliminate a target at long distance.

She felt a slight discomfort in her stomach as she assessed the target once again; perhaps she should request Doctor Akagi give her a physical soon.

(Page Break)

Shinji's eyes flickered over his HUD, locating the two blips on his Map that represented Unit 00 and Unit 02.

"Asuka, move in on the target, Rei, maintain position."

"Understood."

"Hang on, I know I'm good, but even _I'm_ not that good, I'll be in position in five/"

Shinji's eyes shifted to look at the map once again.

'_I don't have time to wait for her, I just hope this isn't going to be a repeat of the fifth, that was a bitch.'_

"I'm moving in, Rei; prepare to lay down covering fire and move positions."

Hearing the confirmation over the comm. he stepped out of his cover behind one of the defensive blocks and emptied three rounds into the swirling mass of black and white.

_Pattern Blue Detected_

"Mission's changed; elimination of target is new priority!" Shinji blinked as he realized where the pattern was emanating from. "Oh Shit!"

Blindly he pointed the gun at the floor before pulling the trigger twice.

No change whatsoever.

The image of Unit 02 appeared in his peripheral vision before he raised the gun and opened fire at it, one bullet clipping the right arm of the unit, making it drop the progressive spear it held.

"Asuka, Rei, retreat to safe minimum distance. I'm dead, nothing you can do for me." By now his mind had found one solution, the Angel was trying to swallow him was it? Well he'd give it the worst indigestion it'd ever felt.

"HQ, this is the Unit 01. Prepare to retrieve Units 00 and 02. Unit 01 out."

Shinji sucked in a breath as he emptied his mind, finally accepting this path as his only choice.

(Page Break)

Maya let out a strangled no as the countdown exploded onto her screen, along with nearly every single other screen in the room.

Then the world began to blur as the readings from Unit 01 stopped all together.

Feeling a pair of strong arms wrap around her, she let herself cry into the offered embrace.

(Page Break)

Ritsuko stared at the screen as she pulled out a cigarette, calmly lighting it and taking a long drag before starring at the Commander.

"I don't give a fuck."

The Commander's eyes glared slightly from behind his orange tinted glasses.

She turned to look at Makoto before continuing, "Tell Rei and Asuka to return to base, because we need to plan and we need to do it _now_."

Shigeru sent her a glance before looking down at her sobbing assistant.

She shrugged back at him.

(Page Break)

Ritsuko scowled as she went over the plan they'd managed to concoct in the three hours since Shinji had been taken, sure, it was the one with the best chance of defeating the Angel and retrieving Unit 01, though even she was doubtful of that; they were dealing with an enemy that had swallowed Unit 01 into a pocket of folded space, so why couldn't it just fold the space further to increase the pocket and negate the explosion of the remaining nine hundred and ninety six N2 mines?

"I sure as hell hope this works."

"And why's that? So we can get Unit 01 back? Without its pilot?" Ritsuko turned to face Misato.

"No, but if this doesn't work then I've no idea how to kill it, and that would be a bad thing."

She turned and left the room to make preparations for the operation.

She really needed another cigarette.

(Page Break)

Shinji shivered inside his plug suit, maybe it hadn't been such a good idea to leave the breastplate in the first place.

"Great, I'm stuck inside an Angel, my Self-Destruct doesn't work anymore and I'm going to freeze to death before I run out of oxygen. This has to be the single most god-forsaken balls up I've ever made!" He'd resorted to mentally shouting in an attempt to stay sane, it wasn't helping.

"I just hope they find a way to get me out of here soon."

(Page Break)

Ritsuko swore as she came to a realization.

Shinji hadn't been wearing his breastplate.

The breastplate was the main part of the temperature regulation system the plug suits used.

The life support system didn't keep the LCL at a bearable temperature.

Shinji was going to freeze to death if she didn't do something soon.

"Damn it!"

Makoto jumped as he narrowly missed having his head removed by a clipboard.

"Um, Akagi-san?" He started hesitantly.

"Tell Rei and Asuka to deploy. Shinji is going to die if we don't get him out of there in the next," she looked at her watch, "ten minutes."

Makoto blinked before turning around and hitting a button to open a channel to the pilots, ordering them to deploy.

(Page Break)

Shinji shivered violently once again, panic beginning to set in on the edges of his mind, he was sure he was going blue now, most of his arms and legs were numb with the cold, prompting him to throw the rest of his power into a last ditch effort to get free.

(Page Break)

Rei frowned as she focused her mind, determined to try and save Shinji, he wasn't replaceable, losing him would mean losing Eva Unit 01. That was unacceptable.

She felt another AT field flow in sync with hers, both trying to make the Angel's own AT field collapse and neutralise the fold-space it was creating with it to give Shinji a chance.

(Page Break)

Shinji threw the Eva's fist against the wall that'd appeared before him, pounding against it until a small hole appeared, light pouring into the darkness around him, illuminating a glinting sphere behind him.

He paid it no heed, too focused on his escape to care.

(Page Break)

Maya watched the screen in shock as the shell fell from the sky, landing heavily to earth as a dint appeared, followed quickly by another, and another; until a vermillion hand could be seen through the Angel's shell.

A roar reached her ears as a long crack began to appear, vermillion blood pouring out as the shell split, the soft innards exposed to the evening's air, rapidly turning an ugly grey.

A bloody Eva stood amidst the gore, head thrown back as it let out a final triumphant roar.

AN: The ending sucks. It's rushed. I'm going to rewrite it later; I haven't watched this episode recently and am going on what I remember then altering it. Feel free to tell me where it needs rewriting. It'll help me a lot.

Omake:

_Pattern Blue Detected_

"Mission's changed; elimination of target is new priority!" Shinji blinked as he realized where the pattern was emanating from. "Oh Shit!"

Blindly he pointed the gun at the floor before pulling the trigger twice.

No change whatsoever.

The image of Unit 02 appeared in his peripheral vision before he raised the gun and opened fire at it.

Unit 02 dropped to the floor, three new bullet holes decorating its skull.

"Owned Bitch!"


	6. Chapter 6

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Remastered

By Death 12

Chapter 6

Maya let out a low breath as she slowly rolled her hips through the roundhouse kick, before binging her leg back across her imaginary target in a hook kick, moving as slow as she possibly could in an attempt to fine tune her balance and control.

'_And forget the last Angel._'

She shook her head in a vain attempt to dispel the image; Unit 01 throwing its head back in a final triumphant roar, its body covered in the Angel's vermilion blood.

She let out a sigh before twisting into a defensive stance as she felt someone behind her.

"Rei? What're you doing here?"

"I wish to spar with you Ibuki-san."

Maya nodded, somewhat surprised at the request but Shinji did say he'd taught her a few things.

"Ready? Fight."

(Page Break)

Shinji bit back a curse as he grabbed his foot.

Kicking metal poles is not fun.

Waking up on a cold tiled floor stark bollock naked and kicking a metal pole is even less fun.

And it hurt.

After a few moments he sat up properly, idly wondering how he'd ended up laid on the floor in the first place, before looking around for the 'call nurse' button; Ritsuko had screamed blue murder the last time he'd just walked out.

(Page Break)

Maya blocked the incoming cross on reflex, knocking it off to the side with her forearm, automatically stepping inside Rei's guard and sweeping her back leg off to the side and giving her a shove backwards, quickly stopping the follow up axe kick an inch short of Rei's nose.

"Point to me."

Rei nodded before getting back to her feet and assuming a simple left stance.

(Page Break)

Shinji scowled as finally found his clothes, neatly folded in one of the nurse stations.

'_Why do they never just leave them in the damn room with me?_'

He looked around again as he buttoned up his jeans.

"Where the hell is everyone?"

(Page Break)

Maya blinked as Rei stepped past her left cross, the albino having placed herself past Maya's guard easily planted a hand on her shoulder and pushed forwards as she swept Maya's back leg out form beneath her.

She dropped a moment after Maya and stopped her finishing strike short, the open palm hovering above Maya's throat.

"I believe that is a point in my favour Ibuki-san."

(Page Break)

Shinji stopped dead as his pocket began to vibrate.

He stared at it for a moment before realisation finally hit him, these were the jeans he'd left in his locker before the Angel attacked.

He pulled the phone out and stared at it for a moment.

'_Why the hell isn't it flat?_' He shrugged and answered it anyway.

"Hello?"

"_Report to Briefing room 3 for a situation report._"

_Click_.

He moved the phone away from his ear and stared at it for a few moments.

"Well fuck you too."

(Page Break)

Maya smirked slightly as Rei committed herself to a hook kick, blocking it with her left arm before wrapping it under her shoulder, her right hand placed flat against the side of her knee before sweeping the supporting leg and dropping at the same time, her grip on the limb not wavering.

"You going to give up?"

Rei looked indecisive for a long moment, the lock hurt, but she would be able to fight Maya off with her other leg.

Maya applied a little pressure to the knee.

'Not before she is able to dislocate my knee. And this hold is, painful.'

Rei nodded slightly. "I submit."

Maya smiled slightly. "Guess I win. Good fight, I enjoyed it."

(Page Break)

"We've just received a report from the USA's first branch."

Everyone's head twisted as the door swished open and closed again, wincing as a pair of trainers squealed against the tiled floor.

"Shinji? What're you doing here? You shouldn't even be awake let alone out of bed!"

The young man in question winced slightly at the tone.

"I woke up and there wasn't anyone at the nurses station so I got dressed and then I got told to come here, so I did."

"What the hell happened to your IV?" He frowned at the question.

"What IV? There wasn't even a stand in the room." Ritsuko snatched his hand up and looked it over, finding no sign of it ever being there.

"Whatever, just sit down somewhere and I'll carry on with the briefing, saves Misato a job later on." She shook her head and moved back across to the image projected onto the wall.

"At 0300 this morning their scanners picked up an energy spike in the area of their Second Branch in Nevada, a satellite scan showed them this." The plain NERV insignia behind her changed, revealing an area of desert, a large crater of glass sat in the middle of it. "This is what remains of second branch. They were due to test the S2 engine they'd installed in Unit 04. It consisted of a repaired S2 organ from the Seventh Angel and parts we'd developed ourselves in an attempt to duplicate the S2 organ in Unit 02."

She paused a moment to let the information sink in.

"We believe what happened was that Unit 04's AT field inverted, swallowing the entire area in a Sea of Driac, a pocket dimension like the one Shinji was swallowed by against the last Angel. At present there's no way to tell if the area will reappear at some stage or why the entire crater is lined with glass."

Misato nodded idly before asking. "So what does that mean for us? Besides losing a backup unit and a pilot?"

"At present First branch is sending us Unit 03 by air, it's due to arrive in two days time and we're going to test it at Matsushiro, all the necessary information will be delivered to you later. Any questions?"

"Who's the pilot?" Ritsuko looked at Shinji somewhat surprised.

"They've not transferred one with the unit so we're still searching for one."

"Right, so why don't you have one of us test it while you search for one, saves throwing some poor guy in at the deep end if it isn't a trained pilot."

Ritsuko nodded. "I'll keep that in mind. Trying to spare someone the same thing that happened to you?"

Shinji nodded. "Yeah."

(Page Break)

Maya frowned as she looked over the readings again, something felt off about this new unit, she just couldn't put her finger on it.

'_Probably the fact they're throwing another kid in it without even testing it first. I know it's passed all the maintenance checks but something just feels _wrong_ about it._'

She went over the list again, looking through the notes about each check, finding nothing wrong once again.

'_Not even a bit of corrosion in any of the casing, even Unit 02 suffers from that to a degree._'

She shook her head and brushed it off as being worried about the initial activation.

(Page Break)

Shinji scowled again as he ran through another set of kata, trying to figure out why he was so edgy, apparently he'd been like it since he was told they were using the new pilot in the initial test today.

'_I still don't fucking see why they don't let one of us do the damn test instead of putting the new pilot in it in case something goes wrong, hell, mine's the only activation test that went fine, Rei's Eva went berserk and Asuka's was going ape when she first connected directly to it._'

He hopped and switched feet as he retracted his foot from the side kick, bringing his right around in a spinning hook kick, swapping feet again as he launched a roundhouse from his left leg.

He threw a jumping backfist to cancel some of the momentum he'd gained, before starting a series of blocking and punches, idly wishing he had someone or something to practise with to make it more interesting.

Idly he thought about heading down to the armoury and seeing if they had anything he could use, like a pair of tonfa or a Jo stick, hell, he'd settle for a pair of Nunchaku to make it a little more involved.

He stopped as a loud thud sounded behind him, followed by the sound of something rattling its way across the floor.

He groaned as he noticed it was his damn phone again.

"Hello?"

"Prepare for deployment against Angel."

_Click_.

"Git."

(Page Break)

Shinji frowned as he boarded his Eva, ignoring the sensation in the back of his mind as the nerves connected and he synchronised with the Eva.

'_Is this why they told us to be on standby this week? Did they know this was going to happen?_'

"_Pilot Ikari, deploy through route 23-17 and prepare to engage the enemy along your defensive line. Remember, Unit 03 has been infected by an Angel and has gone renegade._"

He nodded curtly, as he focused on the task at hand.

He advanced towards the black marker on his screen, dropping to one knee and waiting for Unit 03 to come into range, checking the positions of Units 00 and 02 on his map as he brought it into existence on his HUD with a simple mental command.

Another window appeared in his view as something appeared in the distance, showing him a magnified view of his target.

He fired off a three round burst before he began to run towards the target, rifle still tucked neatly against his shoulder he fired another three round burst into the possessed Eva as he spread his AT field to neutralise the Angel's own.

"Asuka, Rei, do not raise your AT field! Asuka, move up, Rei, hold position."

He was cut off as the Eva's arms suddenly extended, hands tightly wrapping themselves around Unit 01's throat.

Shinji grabbed one of the arms and weakly tried to pry it free, failing miserably to even budge it an inch.

He scowled as he tried to focus, desperately trying to alleviate some of the pressure from his throat as Unit 03 lifted him into the air, pulling him closer to its face.

Only to find itself staring down the barrel of Shinji' rifle as he emptied the magazine one handed.

(Page Break)

Rei shifted in her seat, suddenly uncomfortable with her role in the battle, granted, she was the most skilled at long range combat and more suited to a role in fire support, but there had been no way she could've hit the Angel before it noticed her presence and moved Unit 01 into the line of fire, she was glad he'd been able to force the Angel to let go.

She brought her mind back to the moment as she lined up another shot with her sniper rifle, using a small zoomed window to pick her shots without compromising her vision of the battle.

(Page Break)

Shinji stood again as he caught his breath, bringing the butt of his rifle down onto the Angel's head before dropping it, freeing his prog knife from its shoulder housing and ducking around Unit 03 to its exposed back and the half ejected plug lodged in it.

He quickly cut it free of the webbing and pulled it out, thrusting it into Unit 02's waiting arms before she retreated from the battle.

He sucked back a breath of LCL as his throat began to close, the Angel having recovered and begun strangling him once again.

Twisting his grip on his prog knife he slammed it through Unit 03's wrists, impaling them together and forcing it to loosen its grip temporarily.

"Rei now!"

A boom sounded as a hole punched its way through Unit 03's abdomen, followed by another pounding its way through the chest.

Shinji let out a sigh of relief as the Angel dropped to the floor.

Another shot sounded and reduced the Angel's head to little more than a bloody mess.

"Rei?"

"It twitched."

He couldn't help but laugh.

(Page Break)

Shinji leapt out of the plug as soon as it opened.

"Hey, any word on the pilot of Unit 03?"

One of the nearby technicians looked over at the shout.

"Yeah, he's been taken down to the infirmary, looked alright to me, just out cold, I think the doc said she was gonna check him for mental contamination later, so I doubt she'll let anyone see him before then."

Shinji let out a sigh of relief.

"Thanks." He called, before running to the pilot's changing rooms to take a shower before the LCL dried.

(Page Break)

Maya smiled as she slipped off the bridge, now the threat was over she could finally take a break, thankful that she only had to assist Doctor Akagi and provide logistic support to Misato during battles, otherwise she'd be dealing with the cleanup all night and not be getting a chance to surprise Shinji.

She ducked into the male pilots changing room as quietly as she could, grateful that Shinji wouldn't be able to hear a thing with the shower on.

She took a quick glance to make sure it was Shinji in the showers and not one of the other men taking advantage of the facilities before shedding her uniform with a smile and creeping up behind her lover.

(Page Break)

Shinji whirled around as he felt something brush past him, his right ready to fly out in a powerful cross that would've taken Maya's head clean off had it landed.

"Damn Maya, you scared the shit outta me, my nerves are fried enough as it is."

He sighed as she pouted, before noticing her apparent intention.

"I'm sorry okay? You just scared me is all." He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her against him when she lent into his chest.

Maya looked up at Shinji when she felt his hands begin to wander.

"You have to wait for that, until later tonight anyway."

(Page Break)

Shinji ignored the arms around his waist as he rubbed his hair dry, heading over to his locker for a brush to tame his currently wild hair back into its usual ponytail when he heard footsteps approaching the doorway.

"There's a naked guy in here."

"That you Shinji? Maya wouldn't happen to be in there as well would she?" a familiar male voice drifted through the open doorway.

Shinji spared her a look before shouting back.

"Why? She's off duty at the minute."

"Well, I was wondering if you fancied coming out for a drink with us tonight? It's been a while since we all went out for a night on the tiles." The voice was female this time; it took him a few moments to match the voice to a name and face, finally he recognised it as Ken, which meant that the man was probably Makoto.

He spared a glance at Maya, only to find her shaking her head.

"Sorry, no can do I'm afraid, the Doc said I'm not allowed to drink for at least the next week, something to do with me nearly putting myself in a coma last time."

He could practically hear Makoto shrug as he replied, "Shame, oh well, see you later!"

(Page Break)

Maya idly snuggled into her warm pillow as she stirred, desperately trying to ignore the light that flittered into the room through the room's single window.

"Maya."

She ignored the voice and snuggled deeper into her pillow once again.

"Maya, wake up or I won't be able to cook you breakfast."

She pulled her head out of her pillow slowly, looking at her lover sleepily.

"Breakfast? Okay." Idly she let go of him.

(Page Break)

Maya stumbled into her apartment living room, drawn out of bed by the smell of freshly cooked bacon.

"When'd you start going continental on me?" Shinji looked up from the table he was setting, setting out two pair of knives and forks, forgoing chopsticks in favour of their more practical western counterparts for the meal.

He rolled his eyes at her and headed into the kitchen to fetch out the food.

"Shortly before you started buying the stuff."

"You're not doing anything today are you?"

Shinji set her plate down with a flourish before he answered her.

"Yeah, I was going to head into town for a bit, I need to do some shopping."

She frowned slightly before perking up.

"I guess I might as well come with you, otherwise you won't know what I want for my birthday, you did remember its my birthday soon didn't you?"

Shinji nodded. "One of the most important days of the year for me."

She gave him a small smile.

(Page Break)

Shinji absently trailed behind Maya as she stopped to look into the window of a jewellery shop once again, a delicate silver necklace having caught her eye, she frowned slightly when she looked at the price tag.

Shinji smiled slightly as he noticed what had caught her eye, quickly banishing the look when Maya turned around to face him.

"That one's nice, but it's so expensive, there's no way I could ask you to get me it. I mean come on; half people in this city probably don't earn that a year! Maybe we should go somewhere else, everything around here is so _expensive._"

Shinji idly nodded, wrapping an arm around her waist as he gently steered her towards the end of the street.

(Page Break)

Shinji pulled Maya back slightly as she started to cross the road, pulling her back to the pavement moments before a car skidded past, followed shortly by another.

"Fucking boy-racers."

He shook his head before starting to cross, idly rummaging through his pocket for his phone.

"Shinji! Lookout!"

His gaze shot up to find a car skidding less than a foot away from him.

A split second past as he impossibly jumped over the car's bonnet, clearing the roof by a good inch before releasing a cry of pain as the aerial whipped into his side, completing the roll regardless Shinji landed heavily on his back before rolling into the curb, hissing in pain as grit collected in the gash.

"Oh my god! Shinji!"

A blurred face came into view above him.

"Fuck that kills!" he tried to push himself to his feet, only to find the pain sapping away his strength.

The world carried on spinning for a moment before it shakily settled, a body supporting his wounded side whilst he tried to keep up as he felt himself being carried towards a nearby grey door.

(Page Break)

"What the hell? What happened?"

Maya looked up at the man who'd just noticed them, suddenly grateful for the eternally unshaved man's presence.

"Just help me get him to the infirmary!"

The man slung Shinji's left arm over his shoulder and took Shinji's weight on his right as he wrapped it around his waist.

The pair struggled to move him for a few moments before finally getting him into a lift, leaning his weight against the back wall to give them some breathing room.

"Casper, infirmary priority one!"

The doors slid shut and the lift began to rapidly descend, ignoring any calls between the two.

Several long minutes later, the doors slid open to reveal a haggard looking Ritsuko Akagi.

"I should've something like this was going to happen. Put him on the trolley."

(Page Break)

Maya let out a sigh of relief as she looked Shinji over; she'd not seen him since shortly after Ritsuko had met them, over eleven hours ago, she was fairly sure that Ritsuko had checked him over for everything from a sprained eyelash to internal bleeding and liver failure.

She worked one hand through his ponytail, resisting the urge to free his hair as she checked her watch.

'_Shit, my shift started twenty minutes ago!'_

She lent over to plant a kiss on his dry lips before dashing across the room to the door, sparing him a single glance before leaving for the bridge.

The door clicked softly closed behind her.

The door swung open suddenly, a breeze flittering through the room in response to the sudden shift.

A teen stepped into the room, advancing quickly on the room's lone bed.

Shinji's eyes snapped open as he felt a pair of calloused hands tighten around his throat in his drug-induced slumber.

"Toji? The fuck?"

Shinji's left clumsily slugged Toji across the jaw, relieving the pressure on his throat; he gagged back the reflexive urge to breathe in as he tucked his knees into his chest and launched Toji's recovering form across the room.

Shinji took in a spluttering breath before stumbling across the room towards the recovering Toji, pinning the younger man against the wall by his collar, staring into his eyes as he searched for an answer.

The answering malice distracted him long enough that he missed the short sharp head butt that broke his nose and sent him sprawling backwards through the room's open door.

The few seconds it took Toji to advance were all Shinji needed to recover as his body dumped adrenaline into his system, heightening his reflexes enough for him to spot the haymaker as Toji began to throw it.

He snatched the approaching fist out of the air, dropped his weight, and twisted, the simple throw flipping Toji over his shoulder and onto the floor, stunning him long enough for Shinji to stamp on his throat.

"_Patter Blue Detected._"

He began sprinting towards the Pilot's changing rooms, only to find himself spilled across the floor, a red patch on his side making itself evident.

He pushed himself to his feet, starting once again, this time at a slower pace.

(Page Break)

He way almost upon his Eva when he heard it, the rush of displaced air after the detonation of the most powerful non-nuclear detonation known to man.

"It's here."

(Page Break)

Maya's brain began to shut down as the wall before her disintegrated, the view of the fourteenth Angel having been replaced by the real thing.

"Oh Shit!"

The sense of impending doom vanished as a purple arm drove through the right wall of the room, forcing the Angel through the opposite wall, followed by Unit 01.

(Page Break)

Shinji growled as he pressed the Angel against the launch catapult, the electromagnetic rails glowing white as the friction superheated them.

There was a weightless moment before he hit the ground, the plug around him blank as a phantom pain shot through his left arm.

His teeth gnashed together.

(Page Break)

"Shit! He's out of power!"

"Then why the hell is he getting back up?"

"We've got no telemetry coming through!"

A bolt of white light made night into day for a few brief moments before it burned out mid-flight.

"Pattern Blue!"

"Another Angel?"

Makoto shook his head. "It's Unit 01!"

One of the Angel's paper-thin arms sliced through the air towards Unit 01.

Only to be neatly turned aside as the Eva's remaining palm slammed against the flat side, gripping tightly before ripping it free with a well-placed hook kick.

Following the rotation the Eva knocked the Angel backwards with a roundhouse kick to the jaw.

Ritsuko watched in abstract horror as the Eva looked at the captured limb and then at its own severed shoulder.

"It's AT field just spiked!"

A glow rushed down the limb as the EVA connected it to the remains of its left shoulder, pumping energy into it.

The white glow began to darken and bubble as the arm changed, becoming more human in appearance, stopping halfway through before shifting further, a distinct shape beginning to form as the back of the elbow sharpened and extended whilst another spike began to form in the centre of the palm.

Shigeru managed to sum up the change in two words as the glow vanished.

"Holy. Shit."

The Angel's remaining arm shot out, only to be wrapped up in as efficient a manner as the first, only to be nailed to the Angel's skull as the Eva made use of its new addition.

Two steps carried the Eva to the Angel's body, where it plunged gleaming teeth into the Angel's now exposed throat.

The two struggled like that for a few moments, before the Angel fell away, blood spraying from it's neck as it collapsed to the floor, a series of horrified wails tearing themselves from it's ruined throat as the Eva pounced on it once again, snapping and tearing at it like a starved wolf.

Finally a glistening orb came into view.

Ritsuko paled.

"Oh god no!"

Unit 01 lent down and wrapped its jaws around the orb, pulling it free and swallowing it in the same manner a snake would a mouse.

It let back and let out a triumphant roar.

A moment passed when the roar subsided and all was still.

"We're getting telemetry."

The feed from inside the plug was shown; a translucent Shinji gnashed his teeth together before snapping and snarling like a rabid dog on speed for a few moments before he simply vanished in a cloud of blood after letting loose a howl of triumph.

AN: Well, according to Word this is my second shortest chapter to date, and the longest in production too. My excuse? Hard drive failure before I spent a month abroad.

Omake:

Maya idly pushed Misato's jaw shut.

Shigeru let out an appreciative whistle.

"Yeah, definitely see why she wanted Shinji over a knight on a white horse."

Makoto shook his head softly. "I really feel sorry for whoever has to clean that up."

Ritsuko just gaped at the three of them.

Gendo slammed his head against his desk. Hard.

"This wasn't in the scenario was it?"

"No. Shit. Sherlock."


	7. Chapter 7

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Remastered

By Death 12

Chapter 7

"The scenario did not include the creation of a god. Explain."

The voice drifted across to him from the cool obsidian marker labelled '01' in glowing red letters, the voice lacking the electronic scrambling of the others, the speaker finding it unnecessary to use many different layers to attempt to disguise what was well documented as fact.

Gendo considered his words carefully for a few moments, anything and everything he said here would be twisted by the rest of this foolish council, who the fate's had forced him to throw his lot in with to protect that which his late wife held dear.

"We are still following the _original_ scenario correct? I recall the presence of the S2 organ in Unit 01 to have played a vital role in it."

"He is referring to the organ that currently resides within Unit 02, surely when the time comes the Unit's soul will not stand by to complete the Red Earth Ceremony?" a rather nasally voice shot in, the weak distortion doing little to disguise it's owner.

"I seem to remember addressing that issue some time ago _Senator,_ perhaps if you were to spend less time with the rest of your backward countrymen you would be better informed of current events. For your benefit, there is little reason to remove the organ before the seventeenth approaches; it would look, suspicious perhaps?"

"It would seem that you are developing a rather selective memory Ikari, I remember specifically informing you that we have shifted to scenario B forty three, and that the presence of either organ was to be removed." This time a rather more melodious voice floated across from the obelisk marked '04'.

The screen before him vanished, leaving the commander alone for a few moments before it flickered back into existence.

"I grow tired of these petty squabbles Ikari; you are to maintain your current orders regarding the project. I will be most displeased if you deviate from them."

The screen shut off once again, the connection having been terminated.

Gendo let out a long breath before pushing himself away from the desk, standing to increase the blood flow to his legs and relieve the cramp that had started to develop in them.

"I'm getting too old for this."

(Page Break)

Misato looked around the room, once again carefully eyeing the workers who were unloading the crates; so many guns in one room made her more than slightly nervous.

Especially when more than half of the crates were filled with ammunition for aforementioned weapons.

'_I suppose this is what I get for continually complaining about the lack of proper defensive weaponry in case of a paramilitary assault._' She ran a hand through her free hair, idly noting it was time for her to dye it again, that damn grey strip was starting to show through again.

"Captain, might I recommend that you pay more attention to your surroundings, that's three times I've tried to catch your attention now." The cool tone held a trace of irritation, dragging her mind back to the present.

"Sorry, my mind was elsewhere, you wanted to speak to me?" she turned to find both the commander and sub-commander stood behind her, the younger of the two idly watching the workers load the weapons into smaller containers before transporting them out of the warehouse and to various caches around the base.

"I was asking you if you had drawn up a training plan. Sections Two and Three won't require extra training as they are already equipped with similar weapons, a short familiarisation session should be enough for them. It is more the civilians workers I was concerned about, they do make up the bulk of our personnel after all."

"I figured we could interview them and train the ones who we deem an acceptable risk using the virtual training centre, we'd be able to deal with everything from firing to weapons jamming." Misato inwardly preyed that he bought it, she'd not really done much more than draft up a basic outline for the idea, the idea having been set on the backburner in light of the rather more pressing threat.

The elder of the two nodded, idly glancing over at the commander, who had apparently moved across to the workers and was questioning the foreman about something.

"It is good to see you've planned this out Captain, however, there is a more pressing task for you to fulfil currently. A close friend of the Third's is coming to Tokyo three; you are to meet her at the train station and to take care of her during her stay. We would've warned you sooner but we have only recently been informed ourselves."

Misato nodded and waited for her superior to finish with the briefing and quickly left to collect her car before heading to the city's main train station.

(Page Break)

Misato grumbled as she watched the scant few passengers disembark from the train, the young woman she was due to meet hadn't gotten off this one _either_.

She'd been told to meet her at this station an hour ago, but then, the rail service had never been on time, at least since second impact anyway.

'_Couldn't she have a bright colour in her hair? Sure the blue looks nice but couldn't she at least have picked something that'd stand out?_' she internally cursed her luck at being drawn for pickup duty when she had plans to be drawing up for the first simulator runs.

"Are you Misato Katsuragi? Ikari-kun's guardian?" The purple haired Captain spun to face the speaker, one hand lashing out in a jab that nearly flattened the poor girl's nose.

"There they are!" the shout accompanied the sounds of panic as the few people in the station began to flee.

Misato instinctively drew her pistol and turned to face whoever had shouted, sure the sub-commander had warned her to expect trouble, but for someone to openly try an aggressive tactics like this in a NERV controlled city was just idiocy.

"Back into the station, go." Getting to her car would likely take more time that it was worth, as she'd still have to start it and pull away, easily long enough for someone to disable it, if they hadn't already that was.

(Page Break)

"Captain Katsuragi has come under attack, it is as we feared."

"Send a team to retrieve the captain and her ward, and send a team to capture her attackers; I want to know who they are working for." The sub-commander vanished from the room in a matter of moments; it was _never_ a good idea to question orders in times like these.

(Page Break)

The purple haired captain let out a slow breath as she took aim at the approaching men, a quick double tap evacuating ones brains from his skull and sending the others looking for cover.

'_That'll keep 'em off us another few seconds at best._' And with that she began to drop back further into the station, half-dragging her newest ward with her.

"Where the hell is Section Two? They should be here by now!"

A loud boom sounded outside the station, followed by a short burst of gunfire.

"Spread out and secure the area, if you find the Captain tell her to report in."

(Page Break)

"Section Two have just reported in. Both the Captain and her newest ward are both unharmed and on their way back here, and the train station has been cordoned off pending investigation." The sub-commander paused for a moment before continuing. "None of the other teams have reported any anomalies; it is possible that this was an isolated event."

"I find it far more likely that the council were trying to gain a bartering chip. They know that at present it would be a simple matter to discard their plans entirely, I suspect that the majority of our forces have been identified as potential targets for elimination or capture, ourselves and the pilots especially."

The sub-commander stared at his one-time student for a long moment.

"Since when were you an expert tactician?"

The commander spared him a glance. "I'm not, that's why I hired Captain Katsuragi."

A blank look was all the reply he received.

(Page Break)

"I still can't believe this." The captain groaned before turning to the bottle blond sat opposite. "You're telling me that Shinji won, but got trapped in his robot and you can't get him out?"

"A little help Rits? I have no idea how else to explain this."

The doctor just shook her head. "I can't explain it any better without using a mix of psychological and scientific terms that'd go right over her head. DNA soup sums it up quite well really."

The third woman sat with them looked from one to the other.

"So, you're telling me that Shinji was one of the few people who could pilot one of these robots…"

"Biomechs. Well, artificial humanoids. Biomech's easier to say."

"Right so Shinji's one of the only people who could pilot one of these things, and now he's stuck inside it as some sort of DNA soup. And you don't know how to get him back. I'm not misunderstanding you am I?"

"We know how to get him out, its just last time we tried this it didn't work. Well, not the way it was supposed to."

Misato pounced on that admission. "What'd you mean it didn't work the way it was supposed to? It didn't work at all according to the reports!"

Ritsuko gave a tired sigh. 'Shit, need to work something out to feed her later.'

"Look, I'll explain it to you later, okay? I need to get back to work on getting Shinji back."

"Alright, fine, we're leaving, but you are going to explain that to me later!" She watched the duo leave, shaking her head at her own stupidity. Why had she mentioned that? And why did she just say it didn't work?

(Page Break)

The door to the room slid shut behind her as she muttered, berating herself for the slip before walking across to the only occupied terminal in the room.

"Any luck?"

"We've got genetic degradation throughout the unit, the most advanced case is the left arm, the lance has completely degraded; we weren't able to get a complete map of the genome before it did. We've no way of knowing how to reproduce it I'm afraid."

"Tell me you're running a comparison of the current changes compared to the last known record Maya." She knew her protégée would've been running one, but she had to ask; as much as she didn't want to admit to it she knew that everyone was capable of making mistakes, her latest slip just proved that. 'And it wasn't anywhere near as enjoyable that time back in college.'

"First thing I started, the lance was too quick for us to get a full scan though, that's why there's just a hole where it should be, most of the unit looks like that I'm afraid." A confused look crossed over her features for a moment. "We can still get Shinji-kun back right? He's in the core isn't he?"

"Unless he's done something different to his mother, then yes, he is and yes we can."

"Different to his mother? What do you mean?"

The blond sighed. "His mother was the original test pilot for Unit 01, in the initial activation she ended up like Shinji has, when we tried to revive her we failed. We later found out that she'd bonded to the core, and that because of that, we wouldn't be able to get her back because she didn't _want_ to come back."

"So how do we get Shinji back? If he's in the core would he even _want_ to come back?" Oh god, she was starting to look worried again.

Ritsuko shook her head.

"Why _wouldn't_ he? I'd say you probably know him better than most of us, any ideas?"

"Well no, it's just if his mother didn't want to come back…"

The older woman just shook her head, somewhat amused by the comparison. "Trust me, Shinji is _nothing_ like his mother; besides, he's male, do you really think he'd give up on sex to stay with a woman who he's not seen for as long as he can remember? I know I wouldn't if I was him."

Maya blushed.

"I didn't mean it like that! Although I can hardly blame him for choosing a good-looking girl."

"Ritsuko-san!"

"Hmm, you suppose he'd mind if I borrowed you for a few nights?" Maya's blush deepened as she tried to become one with her chair. "Oh relax Maya, I've not been with another woman since that one time in college. And that was a one off."

(Page Break)

It'd taken them three weeks, three weeks out of the six they could viably retrieve Shinji, three weeks of planning and simulations and they'd still failed.

And that led the good Doctor to here; stood reporting to her boss, who, by all rights didn't look pleased at this turn of events.

"Doctor, do we have any indication of this matter being resolved before the next Angel is predicted to arrive?" His voice wasn't cold like it was in public, there was no need to intimidate her at this point, this wasn't a formal meeting between the two.

But Gendo Ikari would be dammed before he let the doctor's floundering result in his only son's effective death, _that_ would interfere with the scenario. So this led him here, allowing himself to be used as a sounding board for ideas, he was a scientist himself after all.

"Unless we don't manage to retrieve him in the next three weeks then there's no reason to doubt we'll be fully prepared to deal with the next Angel. But I still can't see why that last attempt didn't work, all the numbers were right, but he just didn't appear! It's almost like he didn't want to come back." The younger of the two took a long drag of her cigarette to calm her nerves before waiting for one of the few people she could connect to on an intellectual level to reply with something useful for her, he was always doing that, dropping little hints about this or that that might work in one of her projects.

She just hated it when they had to meet formally; it was like he was a different person when they did that.

"If it had succeeded I'd have been worried to be blunt. If you remember the initial retrieval with Yui created some sort of _creature_ that I do not wish to see again. It was many things, but stable was not one of them, mentally or physically."

"So you think it'll work if we try again? Without changing anything?"

Gendo shook his head at that. "No, it'd help if we knew more about his basic motivations. About what makes him _him_."

"Which is why you brought the girl."

"Which is why I told Mazurka to come." '_Besides making sure she doesn't end up as leverage over us_.'

"Ahh, and she's staying with the Captain because?"

"Because the Captain is more of a people person than you are."

Ritsuko's eyes narrowed dangerously. "And you're implying that I'm incapable?"

"No, I'm implying you'd interrogate her and she'd miss important details. Like what happened to cause my son to start taking self-defence lessons. You do realise the reports we have on him officially are primarily disinformation."

Ritsuko winced.

(Page Break)

"I always wondered why he never seemed to care about his mother, nearly bit my head off when I asked if he was going to visit her grave. I suppose that would do it."

The teen shook her head, idly brushing a dyed blue strand out of her face. "You're missing the point. It's not that he doesn't care about her, he can't care about her. He wasn't exactly very old when she died, and then with some of the worst experiences of his life happening whilst he was trying to get over it. It's not going to endear her memory to him."

"I don't follow you."

The younger of the two let out a sigh.

"It's like this; his mother used to play the cello, so when he stayed with his uncle he started to learn how to play it."

"Uh huh."

"When his uncle died and he came to the orphanage with this cello it made a lot of the other kids jealous. He had something that was _his_ and you weren't allowed to touch it unless he let you, and it wasn't just a little thing, most of us had a few trinkets, but he had this big wooden thing."

"Right."

"A couple of the older kids used to pick on him, and one day they smashed his cello up just before he was going to practise with it."

"He saw them do it I take it."

"One of them ended up with a broken nose, one with a broken arm and the other was in hospital with a minor skull fracture. No one picked on him again for awhile after that." The young woman's brown eyes glazed over for a moment before she shivered.

"So what happened? Did they ban him from learning anymore martial arts?"

"This was before he started learning. The guy who owned the orphanage slapped him silly, then called in a favour with one of his friends to get Shinji into one of his classes, they thought it would help him with his temper amongst other things."

The older of the two frowned as she mulled that over, it didn't really explain _anything_ about her ward as far as she could see, if anything it just confused her more.

"I still don't get it."

"You've heard of the term 'negative reinforcement' right?"

Misato nodded.

"That's when you act a certain way and bad things happen, so to avoid the bad things happening you stop acting that way. So if Shinji associated missing his mother with pain, he would do just about _anything_ he could to avoid it. See what I'm saying?"

"You're saying that because he kept getting hurt when he wanted his mother it pretty much beat it out of him." The captain winced as she thought of the implications of that before giving the younger woman another measured look. "You're a shrink aren't you?"

"No, but I can't help but read more about the way the mind works, it's just so damn interesting."

(Page Break)

Another three days passed as Ritsuko modelled different scenarios using the Magi, eventually coming to a decision.

"I need more coffee."

She spared her mug a long look before standing up and walking over to the coffee pot, grateful she'd requested one when she got the job with NERV.

_Scenario Modelled B17R03:_

_Analysis: Subject stands a 73 chance of retrieval if performed prior to three week threshold, success rate falls to 35 in fourth week and 10 in fifth week. Subject not expected to be recoverable post fifth week._

That was the last report the Magi had given her, and it still had too many variables for her to think about suggesting it.

_Warning: Viable Subject recovery timeline has decreased due to changes in Artificial Humanoid Central Core. Timeline adjusted to four week period. Remaining time for viable Subject retrieval – Three Days. Recommend immediate implementation of Scenario B17R03._

"Well, fuck." With that the blond dashed towards the door, intent on setting the wheels into motion as quickly as possible.

(Page Break)

It took another two days to finalise everything for what would be the final attempt at retrieving the erstwhile third child, if the attempt failed then they would make no further attempts after this, there was no telling _what_ might decide to come out, but whatever it was wouldn't be Shinji Ikari.

"Preparing to enter final stage now." An unfamiliar voice announced, none of the usual bridge technicians were on duty at present, one because she was far too emotional to be able to do her job properly, one because he hadn't slept for two days and the last because he was a hardware monkey who's shift had ended an hour ago.

"Do you think this'll work?" Ritsuko spared the two women stood at the front of the room a glance; both were an important part of the life they were trying to retrieve, one room mate and guardian; the other, girlfriend and lover.

"It'll work."

'_Glad to know _someone_ has faith in this._' The doctor thought cynically, unable to squash the sinking feeling that had appeared in the pit of her stomach.

"Entering Final Stage – All readings within pre-defined levels Doctor."

"Good, continue with the recovery."

(Page Break)

Maya stared out of the viewing window before her at the crucified purple giant, a mass of cables and restraints holding it in place, most notably around the core and the surrounding walkway; if he was going to appear it would be from out of there.

'_Not _if_, when he reappears Maya!_'

"I can't wait till this is over." Maya turned to look at the older woman stood with her, absently asking what she meant by that.

"I know we're not that close, even if he does spend most of his time out, but I've missed him. And that scares me." Misato spared a glance at the room behind her, exchanging a quick glance with Ritsuko before she carried on. "I have no idea when I got used to him being around, and I've even less idea when we got close enough for me to _miss_ him, but when he gets back I'm not sure if I'll kiss him or kill him."

A wiry smirk wound its way across the Colonel's features as she shifted her gaze to the young technician. "Though I'll have to get in line I suppose, won't I missus Ikari? Or is he taking your name instead?"

Maya blinked.

"Eh, was worth a try."

(Page Break)

"Ego pattern isolated, we've got him."

The room let out a sigh of relief at the news, many having been concerned about the operation, given just how successful the previous operations had been – or rather, their complete failure.

"Wait – We're losing it! Contingency 6B! Switch patterns – Now!"

The room tensed once again as the technicians scrambled to re-establish the vital pattern that made up the Third Child's conscious mind, without being able to separate that from the Eva's own the only possible outcome of the operation was failure.

"Damn-it, it's completely dissolved, abort operation." The lead technician ordered, he'd been well briefed on what could happen if they didn't pull the plug at this stage, and that was one thing he _wasn't_ going to risk. "Let the record show that the operation ended unsuccessfully at nineteen thirty seven, someone make the call."

The unfamiliar man slumped backwards into his seat before leaning forwards and placing his head into his hands, taking in a long shuddering breath and releasing it slowly.

He idly spared a glance at the still forms that stared out the view screen, two being held pulled tightly against the blond between them.

"God damn it..."

AN: My muse has officially died, she was dragged out into the yard and shot. Repeatedly. Figured I'd just finish it here, felt like a good place to drop it. No I'm not going to let someone else continue it, I don't mind if someone genuinely thinks they can do a brilliant job of it and keep it in character with the way I've done things. I don't care if it's one of the authors whose writing I enjoy – answer is still no.


End file.
